I am originally from the Midwest but moved to New York City for a job about a year and a half ago. The rest of my family is still "back home" and over the past week I was there for a visit.
During my stay, my brother and I visited a big box retailer that shall remain unnamed. While there, we were walking down the aisle and a guy was walking towards us and looked at my brother and I as though he knew us. As we got closer, we realized that we did not know him though he stopped and watched us pass. As we did so, he said to no one in particular "Yeah, there are some PDQs here, some Pretty Dumb Queers. They are all taking over. Stupid queers are everywhere."
Once far enough away, my brother and I looked at each other somewhat bewildered. Was that directed at us? If so, was it one of us in particular? The entire interaction was so odd, we kept discussing it. We analyzed our respective appearances--he was in dress pants and nice shirt, me in workout attire. His initial reaction was, "Well, that's what we get for going to >name of retailer< to get cheap ice cream." But as we discussed it more, I realized that my brother had a far more charitable attitude about it than I did. His sense was that someone who feels so threatened by a person who is different that they feel a need to say something so offensive in such an indirect manner, it is clear that the intention was to hurt someone, but it is also an act of thinly veiled fear. My brother pitied this guy and all of the potential relationships, opportunities and knowledge he would miss out on as a result of his rigidly narrow world view.
While I am not sure if I agree entirely with my brother, I think is approach is one of the healthier ways to cope with such a situation. He has always put up with a lot of comments and harassment like this and always impresses me with his maturity in handling them. But it leads me to wonder--if we could pity this guy because we (again, based on appearances and assumptions of our own) are probably more well educated and potentially more affluent than he and feel a sense of relief in ourselves that way; what does that say about us as well as him? Also, what does this comment say about how the idea of "queer" is understood? Clearly this was offensive to him, and while my brother and I were not offended by being considered "queer", it was the manner in which this guy acted that was offensive.
This incident also leads me to think of how people act differently in more heavily populated and diverse areas than in the more sparsely populated less diverse communities. In places like New York or Toronto (where I also lived for a time) there are so many different people interacting on so many levels that if someone avoids anyone they regard as "other" they would have great difficulty trying to eat, use transportation, be entertained, or receive medical attention. There is simply no room for it if one wants to function effectively within such an environment. This also leads me to think that, if we cannot erase bigotry, is it possible to force it out of the public sphere so that interactions are at least devoid of overt expressions of it? If that happens, are we better off, or will we have regressed as a society?
Clearly I have been fraught with questions and competing thoughts and opinions of my own based on this incident. I have tagged it as queer issues, but I really think that some of the questions I have posed are far more broad and intersectional than just queer issues. I look forward to any thoughts or insights that the community can share!
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Your question reminds me of something I read in high school. I hate that I can't remember what it's called but this man was basically saying that although he's not a racist, sexist, etc (basically, a bigot in general) that he wouldn't hold it against someone if they were to make remarks about him (if I remember correctly, the man was Asian or something that was non-white). I understood his argumentation on the matter, but I started to think about deeper problems our society has. It's so hard to erase bigotry when a person is raised to believe something. It's true that they have the capacity to believe otherwise after some time, but I have to understand that things often get forced into our heads as children.
I think you had a right to be offended or angry. I'm sure that many of us would be as well, but I know that depending on the individual's personality, things can be dealt with in many ways. Unfortunately, bigotry still exists in the stereotypical parts of the US where we would think it still exists. I don't think that we can say "Hey...maybe you should just move on from the rude comment" because the pacifism allows for the cycle to continue. However one decides to deal with it though, it should result in no affect on the person's value or worth. I'm not sure how long it will take, but I'm hoping things like that can eventually be learned to be eradicated. If someone thinks or feels a certain way, it should be learned to just be kept to themselves.
Sorry you had to go through that. I love how people like to assume things about others by just merely looking at them.
It is very regional... and it's not always strictly by size. I live in a moderately sized town right now for college, and it is very liberal and accepting of most things (there are groups of bigots, but they tend to be fairly small.) Other people at my college talk about their hometowns, and in some of them, well, it's totally different from here, or even the larger city in this state, where I'm from. To some degree, it's regional culture, I guess.
The sad reality is that, even though yes this really tends to be a regional issue, the idea that this young man was projecting is universal. Just because they don't say it to your face, doens't mean they're not thinking it. Furthermore, these pejorative words only hold power when you let them. This is why there is such a strong movement of young LGBT people reclaiming the word, "queer", myself included. Much like many women are now taking back "cunt". Now, in certain circles, it's a word of empowerment. I may hate the word "pussy", (it holds too much of a negitive conotation for my liking. Notice how the worst thing you can call a man is some word relating to woman...pussy included.) but let it be known I love the word cunt!
But back to queer...it holds power, simply because we let it do so. Reversing the meaning will prove fruitless as far as only meaning "strange" is concerned. The trick is to say, "yea, I'm QUEER." not, "yea, I'm a gay man." (the word queer normaly referse to men) or "yea, I'm a lesbian."
As far as whether it is better to force this kind of bigotry out of "the public sphere," I've actually always felt it was better to force things like this INTO the public sphere. When you belong to a widely feared or hated group (this from my experience as a trans woman) you KNOW what people are thinking and saying about you. Maybe not on an individual level, but at a societal level.
It's the things that aren't said out-loud that are the hardest to fight. It often feels like 20-30% of a population will feel or act a certain way, and the other 70% will just say "what's the big deal?" and dismiss it or refuse to believe that the bigotry exists. The only reason for people to hide their bigotry is that they know most people will not agree, but also know that if they do things more subtly they can get more support. When someone says something aloud and in public, it forces everyone around them to face it and deal with it rather than just ignore it as they might have done otherwise.
I've always been in favor of making bigotry more visible - it makes it easier for reasonable people to fight it. Otherwise, it just becomes so ingrained and spread out that nobody even thinks about it, and it becomes harder to point it out to make people start thinking.
Also I speculate about hiding bigotry, that it tends to be the worse forms of bigotry that you can hide. It's hard to insult someone in secret, but easy to vandalize their house or commit various other crimes against them without getting caught (it's also harder to prove this sort of thing is hate-motivated, so its easier for other people to dismiss, despite the worse results); so I worry that forcing bigots to act in secret may make things worse in that way as well.
I think that in a situation like you described (a passing non-interaction with a complete stranger), there is little you can do besides get a little irritated and then continue with your grocery shopping. Confronting him or making a scene would most likely be very ineffective. I am living in a medium sized city in the southeast and am, through my manner of dress and purposefully androgynous styling choices, visibly queer (hey, in a town with no gay bars, you've got to advertise). I sometimes get similar passive-aggressive comments from strangers and either ignore them complete or respond with an equally passive-aggressive "fuck you, redneck" over my shoulder.
but, i do think that if you are in a situation with a person where you have the opportunity to discuss this sort of subtle discrimination, you should definitely take it. im not the most popular party guest because of this attitude, but when im in a social situation with a group of people and someone says something that reflects underlying racial/sexual/class bigotry i confront them and address the issue. its usually those situations where someone makes a "soft" offensive joke or comment and everyone awkwardly looks at each other wondering what, if anything, to say or do. i let them know that their actions or words have hurt/offended/bothered me and most likely others in the group. it only takes one person in a situation like that to get the ball rolling and a good and constructive conversation going.