Fresh bagels, Starbucks™ coffee, foot massages – the SM main office is indeed posh. Thanks for having me, just remember, I expect to be paid in cash.
So let me begin with a personal anecdote, For what better way is there to endear yourself to your readers but with something that will tug at their heartstrings or at least get them frothing at the mouth.
In order to prepare for our upcoming trip to London, the Mrs. and I went to get an American passport for our two year old son at the county clerk office here in Brooklyn. (I must mention here that I have been on vacation for the past week and have not shaved during the time. A quick glance at me in the CCTV puts me high on a lot of freedom-lovinÂ’ peopleÂ’s wanted list). The guy behind the counter was a big old queen, IÂ’m talking rings on each finger, dyed hair, in his early 60s looking like Tony Curtis and talking like Paul Lynde queen.
“Well, well” he says, “looks like another form printed from the internet, let me see if this is the right one they always screw it up.”
“Is it the wrong form?” I ask
“No, it’s the right one, but usually people screw it up” he replies.
He started to fill out other paperwork then asked for our I.D. (the US passport office suggests you bring a state-issued driver’s license as a form of I.D.). As he continued to write down information from our ID he looked up and says “Now you don’t have a Resident Alien card do you?” (I don’t since I am an US citizen, but he was talking to me.)
My wife interjected “Yes, I do, but I didn’t bring it.” (she’s Welsh with a UK Passport).
“Well, I don’t have to accept this application you know” he says with a flourish of his many-ringed fingers.
“I mean he (speaking to me, the swarthy looking one) looks like he doesn’t belong here but here, you are the one with the resident alien card. You really should bring it with you when you come for something like a passport”.
We both bit our tongue. Telling him to stuff it for that comment meant we would have to go back home, come back with more paperwork and go through this process all over again on the hottest motherchucking day of the year.
Welcome Turbanhead! Love the Sharad Haskar pictures/story. Some ground rules now that youÂ’ve broken the seal (as the kids say): 1. Remember to post about M.I.A. at least once a week. 2. Balance every post about Kashmir/communal riots/Â’war on terrorÂ’ backlash with the desi chick whoÂ’s a Wizards cheerleader/Sunny Leone/Bollywood porno SMS scandal story. And youÂ’ll be golden in our eyes. 3. Try to post during cubicle hours (weekdays). I donÂ’t have a connection at The Penthouse and donÂ’t want to read the Archives.
Thanks.
You know, there’s a lot of people here in texas who probably don’t think he looks like the ideal Patriotic American, either.
People can be stupid – and you should definitely report him for his rudeness… or does the US Government not care about customer service?
Lovely multicultural diversity from a blue state..
Reminds me of the insanity I had to go through to get a grad school application: “I don’t have a bloody I-4, F-4, J-4, Resident Alien anything.. I don’t even know what the hell you are talking about. Just send me the damn regular application.”
All because of my name.
P.S. Next time take Evander.
P.P.S. Keep an eye on your wife.
Unfortunately, disgruntled government employees are the least likely to show common decency, even to U.S. citizens that look like the prototype (i.e., Caucasian male with Anglo-Saxon heritage). Customer service is not a hallmark of the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella organization now in charge of what was once known as the INS and is now called USCIS. Their office in Chicago, also known as the “cattle call,” herds immigrants and their fellow advocates for hours at a time until they come face to face with a rude awakening. Welcome to America, indeed.
It doesn’t. I got my citizenship recently and it was a bloody nightmare. Freaky how rudely I was treated when I went by myself, and how much faster things moved when I stifled my sense of feminist outrage and had my white boyfriend do the talking for me. (Papers that were “lost in transit” from TX to NY…then supposedly destroyed in the Twin Towers..”and by the way, lady, if you file in one state, you should STAY in that state”…magically showed up.)
Some INS (or whatever it’s now called) workers were pretty decent and normal…but you still feel totally powerless, like you’re begging for something, despite wearing your best clothes and posh-ing up your accent. Ack. At least now I can get the social security I’ve been paying into for years. wheee.
Hey buddy. Glad to see you here. Be prepared for tomorrow and the future if you’re riding the MTA: New York Times is reporting that starting tomorrow NYPD is announcing they are going to begin randomly searching backpacks, purses and packages before passengers board the subway.
While I’m happy that MTA and the NYPD are making moves to make the subways a bit safer, I really hope this won’t become a racial profiling issue.
Stan you rule!!!!! Love ya!
Sadly, when dealing with the DHS/ USCIS, its usually the recent immigrants who work there, that are the nastiest.
That should read: Remember to post about M.I.A. at least twice a week 😉
YAY! Turbanhead!
Being naturalized was a RIDICULOUS process. I think they have hired the bitchiest, least helpful people with the highest sense of entitlement to work at INS (at least the office in Arlington, VA.)
It broke my heart – there were people who don’t speak English all that well, clutching asylum applications, trying to talk to an “aide” who spent the whole time filing her nails, snapping her gum, and yelling with/at her coworkers.
You should have said to him “Yeah, F.U. too pal!“.
So.. this post of yours stereotyping him as gay by his appearance is your revenge for him stereotyping you by your appearance.. when will the madness end?
Ah… you’ve been chastised for some part of your post… now you’ve officially become a poster for Sepia Muitny. 😉
Jack, I believe that TB was showing the irony of someone being so outrightly gay discriminating someone else based on their apperance.
Turbanhead ZINDABAD!
You should have written a “strongly-worded letter” to his supervisor.
😉
I agree with Jack. This stereotyping has to stop. I am naturalized citizen myself. I can’t say I had really horrible experience with the particular process. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the easiest thing, but in the same breath it wasn’t the hardest thing I have done in my life. Turbanhead how can you expect him not to stereotype you, when you are stereotyping him? I am not saying what he did was right by any means, but by you calling him ” big old queen, IÂ’m talking rings on each finger, dyed hair, in his early 60s looking like Tony Curtis and talking like Paul Lynde queen” was also not right. Like Jack Said “when will the madness end?”
Now I wasn’t at the scene, but if Turbanhead’s describing this correctly, he was out and proud.
Some people have a weird view of stereotyping– you want to avoid inaccurate generalizations about a group which play to the conventional wisdom.
It isn’t stereotyping if it’s about an individual, and it’s true. To call a spade a spade isn’t just correct, it’s your duty.
There is a difference here that I don’t think you are understanding. TB was describing how this big queen looked, but not how he predicated his actiongs towards him based on those looks. Where as the ‘big queen’ not only verbalised his stereotyping, but also the formed disparaging actions along with it — although more than likely because most government workers seem to hate everyone.
I live in a predominately HUGE gay neighborhood, and I have a lot of gay neighbors. Not only are they out, but often talk amongst themselves as big queens, girls or even faggots. Not only that but many of them would prefer that you refer to them in this manor.
I’ve met many people straight, gay, bi, pink, purple, brown, white, black, etc..it doesn’t matter if they are a minority or group that has been discriminated or persecuted; indidividuals can and will be assholes regardless of it; To prove my point, I have several black security guards in apartment building. There was one who was well into his sixties or seventies, and for the life of me, I could never really understand what he said at times. One day he had come up to make sure that the thermostat was working correctly. As I’m sitting there going through my mail and making small chit chat, he say’s “So how do you like it here?” Here did not mean building, neighberhood, town, or city. I knew exactly what he meant, and he meant the US. How galling is that when, I’ve lived here for over thirty years, and speak perfect american english (slang and all) to be asked such a question, from someone who most likely was part of the civil rights movement.
sluggo:
I’ve seen your attitude often. You point to the queen and the security guard and say “racially insensitive”.
You point to turbanhead and say “irony”. You assume that a elderly black man was “part of the civil rights movement” and that obviously he meant “the US” and not the building/neighborhood, and I guess on your part that’s just being “racially insightful”, because Amerikkkans are like that, right?
So when me and mine do it, it’s irony. When others do it, it’s insensitivity or worse.
it’s just bothersome that just because I look foreign, some people assume that I could not have possibly lived in the States my whole life (which i have by the way). This is the great American melting pot-school house rock flashback-anyone could be from anywhere!
Welcome, Turbanhead! Your kid’s Welsh-Indian? He must be cuteso cute. Hybrids rule!
Bitter memories of the lady at the New Orleans drivers’ licensing office who insisted on seeing my passport as formal proof of identification because my as-yet-valid Wisconsin DL wasn’t enough? Of course, the maraschino on top (in keeping with the fruit motif of this first Turbanhead post) was her proclamation that it didn’t matter that I have a US passport, “you weren’t born here, so you’re not a citizen.”
And how would this matter for my authorization to drive in the state of Louisiana? Also, ever heard of naturalization, you dullard?
They pick the brightest crayons out of the rejects box for these jobs. Then again, would you want such employment?
Wow, and here I thought nobody noticed me. sniff
I did? Wow, I didn’t know I could write without knowing it.
No, insightful will just do fine.
Hmmmm…I’ve never used ‘Amerikkkans’ before. The only one who did that was GC, but if it’s not trademarked, could I use it?
Don’t you mean the opposite?
Well, Jacko, it seems your reading comprehension is quite limited. While TB hasn’t really commented on any other comments, I’ll stick with what I can infer. Let’s start with your first statement.
Stereotyping is never going to stop, because it’s a part of humanity; unless maybe your mentally challenged and don’t comprehend things in the same ways. Are you mentally challenged Jack? But people can raise their actions above their stereotypes, which apparently the gay individual couldn’t do. TB did not mention the ethnicity at all of the gay person, but I’m sure that most people assumed that it was white male. Did TB do or say anything negative or deragtory based on the stereotype? No. Did the gay person? Yes. Do you understand the ‘irony’? And no, it’s not like ‘tinny’ or ‘coppery’.
My conversation with the older black gentleman was paraphrased rather a huge drawn out essay. It happened a few weeks after 9/11, and the conversation lead from where I grew up, to that question. After several years off conversing with same person, all of sudden he want’s to know if I like the ‘US’? Please..it has nothing to do with “racial insight”. People are stupid when they are afraid, and it doesn’t matter what their background is;
I’m an American, is that ok with you? And, yes, Americans of all backgrounds can be like that. Are we so pure?
Who exactly are you talking about?
Maybe some remedial course could help out.
I hear Sylvan’s quite good…
Sluggo, what are you saying? Why would you think this man was most likely part of a civil right’s movement? Because he is black? Did you ask him if he meant if you like it here in the US or are you ‘assuming’. I have been asked that many times but I have never once thought well, they must mean here in the US just because I am indian? I don’t let myself think that way I am a government employee since 1998 and work along with many more government employees, but never have came across one that hated others, in the way you are assuming. I understand that everyone has different experiences but DON’T say MOST goven. employees hate everyone we are not all bad. Another thing, since when does one go the immigration office or the embassy w/o their passport. Maybe it’s my silly habit that when I go to get visas or anything I always have my passport and SSC. Even when they ‘SUGGEST’ that you might not need it. Just so I can avoid situations like this.
All of you guys expressing displeasure with INS employees may not have yet experienced the distinct joy of going to the Indian consulate (pick your city) to get a travel visa.
Now, THERE’S a bastion of good manners and excellent customer service – and if you are lucky enough to be brown yourself, they treat you SO much better.
Has anyone else seen Avenue Q?
Everyone’s a little bit racist Sometimes. Doesn’t mean we go Around committing hate crimes. Look around and you will find No one’s really color blind. Maybe it’s a fact We all should face Everyone makes judgments Based on race.
Everyone’s a little bit racist Today. So, everyone’s a little bit racist Okay! Ethinic jokes might be uncouth, But you laugh because They’re based on truth. Don’t take them as Personal attacks. Everyone enjoys them – So relax!
Everyone’s a little bit racist – All right! Bigotry has never been Exclusively white If we all could just admit That we are racist a little bit, Even though we all know That it’s wrong, Maybe it would help us Get along.