So ...This Happened

I have a low tolerance for stupidity, for stupidity masked as an attempt at humor, and zero tolerance for racism, and today I endured them both.

A female co-worker and I were discussing the girl who used Gorilla Glue Spray Adhesive instead of hair spray on her head and had to seek medical attention to have her problem solved. I was stunned that anyone would think something called Gorilla Glue, or even spray adhesive, should be used on your hair, and said, as I did at the beginning of this post, that I have a low tolerance for stupidity. But then another co-worker, a male, came up and joined the conversation and said to the two of us:

"Well, come on, she looks like a gorilla."

Head.Snap. I turned to him and said:

"Do you understand what a racist thing that is to say?"

"Why is that racist?"

"Why? WHY? Go up to [another female-co-worker who is black] and call her a gorilla,. and then go find [a white female co-worker] and call her a gorilla and see the difference in their  reactions. And if you think I need to explain why calling any Black person a gorilla is one of the most offensive things to say, you and I need to have a whole other conversation about ignorance."

"I was trying to be funny."

"And there it is; you think racism is funny? Even if you had no idea about how offensive what you said is, the fact that you think calling anybody, especially a woman, a gorilla, is funny is the height of ignorance."

“Well, I didn’t know—”

“And now you do.”

The female co-worker looked at me as the male co-worker scurried away, and before she could say a word, I said:

“Speak up. Shut it down. If he didn’t know better, now he does and hopefully he’ll do better.”

2012, y’all, and this kinda bull shit still goes on. We have so far to go.