Not sure why stereotypes always have to be
negative, except for maybe people are just channeled into negativity too much.
The negative stereotype of the pretentious white Becky for example – I bet we
all know a chill Becky or too, and it feels awkward to be all “lolol” at Becky
memes when you suddenly humanize this otherwise dehumanizing activity with a
real life chill Becky. I mean, I also get it, it’s a reactionary dehumanization
process against a larger dehumanization process that is cultural, so I ain’t
mad at nobody… just saying.
A stereotype I apply in real life, sort of, is one I call the Otis. I ride the
bus a lot, and also tend to be one of those types that interacts with people in
passing, and also seems to draw in interactions with random people,
specifically the wild ones. I guess it’s my natural dirtgod nature. I can throw
up metaphysical boundaries if I need to, activate the hillbilly murder eyes and
get a little space, in fact as a kid that’s how I survived a lot of times
riding the bus. But now for the most part, when meandering to and from this or
that, my boundaries are minimal and I’m talking shit with the world in passing,
because that’s how I enjoy this limited ass life I got. Invariably when living
this way, you’re gonna have conversations with older chill dudes – old school
loungers – who got a solid power of lounge outlook on life despite not having
all that much. The shocking thing we sometimes forget in this American death
machine is that you actually don’t need a whole lot to be happy. Doesn’t mean
people shouldn’t be treated equally, or that wealth inequality is not the
defining issue of our current state of political affairs, but it does mean that
we ain’t all gotta be millionaires living in a big house on a tall hill looking
down on the rest of the world. You can carve out a pretty happy life in simple
means, and in actuality it might be easier if you keep it simpler. I strive for
this in my basement apartment phase of life I’m living now.
These old loungers will always have that
conversation for you though, about chill places in town, or about some dude who
wasn’t no good at work, generally a management type, and there’s like a small
arsenal of them in my everyday life now. We get to talking so much, and be like
“what’s up” every time we see each other though, that we never get around to
knowing each other’s name. Ever. And I ain’t the type to be asking some dude
his name. Why can’t we just talk and be chill and friendly and have each other’s
public back without knowing who the fuck we exactly are? These dudes, to me,
are Otises. All of them are Otis.
There’s one Otis in particular, I see this dude
all the time, African-American dude, we talked in passing on his birthday one time,
talked about UVA basketball, talked about every damn thing pretty much. He’s
like me, interacts with the passing world. Now I’ll just randomly be walking
through some part of town (always on foot, the way of the lounger, if able) and
I’ll hear, “there he goes” or something like that, and it’s Otis. Of course I
don’t know his name is actually Otis so I’m like, “hey, what’s up potna?” or “what’s
going on chief” or some colloquial code switching nonsense like that from my
youth. I guess it ain’t really code switching because that’s more my heart, and
I’m actually code switching when I’m surrounded by these well-to-do devils and
acting like I prefer perfect grammar and respecting the written law of the
government more than the unwritten law of the lounger. But nonetheless, Otis
always brightens the day, and has helped raised the bar of all Otises in
passing, so that when I’m on a road trip in some strange place, and say I’m
about to go into the Roses in Henderson, North Carolina, and some old dude is
rolling up in a dented and skinned up but still relatively clean old ass
Lincoln, windows down and the old jams playing, I think to myself, “hell yeah,
fuckin’ Otis” and it’s a positive stereotype, and I feel better, and then I go
into Roses and get a couple more throw pillows like I planned.
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