The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by S. Bear Bergman

Author:S. Bear Bergman [Bergman, S. Bear]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Social Science, LGBTQ+ Studies, Gay Studies, Lesbian Studies, Gender Studies, essays
ISBN: 9781551522647
Google: LcVcPgAACAAJ
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Published: 2009-11-15T23:44:43.746916+00:00

Not Getting Killed, with Kindness

This morning, as I was getting a cup of coffee around the corner, someone asked me whether I was raised in this country. I am sometimes asked what planet I’m from, or even whether I was born in a barn, but this question hasn’t come up much. I replied that I was, and wondered why she’d asked. My English is unaccented, my general comportment doesn’t seem to suggest foreignness; I wasn’t listening to French-language hip-hop on my iPod. She said, with some surprise, that she’d wondered because I was so polite, which she does not associate with Americans. Nodding and grinning, I shrugged, thanked her for the compliment, and said what I usually say in such situations: “I was raised right.”

That’s true, but it’s a half-truth. It is true that I was raised by parents who, whatever their strengths or faults may have been, placed a very high premium on being courteous and friendly. They taught me to say, “May I please,” as though it were a single word, and to say, “Thank you,” early and often. I learned by example that taking the time to say, “Good morning,” to inquire how someone’s day is progressing and to actually listen to the answer, go a long way in making one’s world a nicer place in which to live. And I internalized a basic understanding of the concept that one gives respect in order to get respect; that it is the height of self-centeredness to assume that anyone will treat me respectfully if I don’t treat them in the same way, and that this is true for anyone I encounter in my life, no matter what social status that person’s job might seem to confer upon hir. That, in fact, those distinctions are themselves at the heart of American-style rudeness—the idea that the person who makes me a cup of coffee does not deserve to be called Sir and thanked politely absolutely as much as the university president who is about to decide if I get a gig or not.

I wish I could say that I have continued practicing politeness as it was taught to me solely out of a deep sense of respect for all other people until they prove themselves otherwise. I would like to be a person who, for no other reason than coming from a whole-hearted place of honoring the divinity in all beings, treats everyone around me exactly as I believe we all deserve. I’d like to say that, but it isn’t quite true. I have to confess to an ulterior motive. If I’m being honest, the truth is that I am courteous and friendly to everyone I meet, or at least I try to be, because I want them to like me before they notice what a freak I am and try to punish me for it.

I recognize that, on the page, this sounds like hyperbole, and in some ways it is. I do not, in general, feel myself to be

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