the wonderful adams morgan listserv: tacos and terrorists

i am a lucky member of the adams morgan community yahoo group, a string of emails i follow with joy and suspence. i get updates on whose liquor licenses are being revoked, complaints about drunk people crowding the streets on late saturday nights and the circumstances behind our all too frequent shootings and muggings. but nothing beats aggravating the crusty old prejudiced residents in my spare time!

it all started with a post this week by someone who, after much googling i found has a much better job than her spelling would call for:

"The precense of gang members living in Columbia Rd. and the number offake ID vendors had increased. Before grocery shopping I usually stopby for a bite to eat at this taco place, Pepitos Bakery across theSafeway. Maybe because it was nice day or what? but there was thisman in his late 20's to 30'sh. in the stablisment, dressed with ablack T-shirt, baggy pants and tatued arms, neck, hands and I alsonoticed a tatued letter on each finger,ah! he also carried a prettyintimidating body language. The Mailman came in and gave him a bulkof mail, I am assuming that the tatued man lives in a apartment abovePepitos Bakery.The fake ID vendors harrassing!!.Columbia Rd. never looked uglier to me. I wanted to take picturesbut got scared.I proceeded to Safeway and there was another man dressed just as Idescribed above. Are they immigrating from Va to DC? "

flawed on so many levels, there were several replies to this including a bunch that recognized that there's a tattoo parlor just above the taco joint, and that's likely the guy who was receiving the mail.

i added that anyone with tattoos who uses the postal service for their mailing needs is therefore in a gang, and added that i saw a gentleman with a neck tattoo purchasing a packet of forever stamps and therefore must be a terrorist. he didn;t buy the 42 cent ones, he is saving them for later...terrorist!

further replies tried to argue the prejudice by saying "how do you know tattoo'd guy isn't a scientist?" and that's when i was all, hold on here people, scientists have tattoos and they also don't. nice people have tattoos and some bad people don't. and tattoos have been around for tho0usands of years, and some of them are pretty nice (http://www.larskrutak.com/) and i just happen to be a scientist without a single tat, but that's only because i'm too scurred. and also, bad spelling is a trait of social deviants so let's just stop that nonsense.

i also tried to argue that most people who have fake IDs are either working their asses off at every restaurant in the city, or are otherwise underaged darling college girls who, i might add are often adorned with lower back tattoos, a.k.a. the tramp stamp. why do you think there is a line outside of Chloe night club every weekend?

and that's when this fantastic personal message from the owner of a pool hall up the street came in, making it al worthwhile, he called my taco joint a dump, i told him he should move to georgetown. i told him to be positive and embrace our culture, he replied with:

"you my dear neighbor are a douche bag - it is plain and simple. you missed the boat and the point. you have no idea what i eat, who i live with, who i love, what language i speak, who or what my lover is or whether i love tacos. you idiot this has nothing to do with discrimination against anyone or anything. you are narrow minded, accusatory and so stuck in your sense of self importance about your issues, that your ignorance blinds you. you idiot how in the fuck do you know how the tatooed guy looked at this girl? how do you know that? tatoos, tacos, terrorists. racist? there are a hell of a lot of scum bags who break the law and sell illegal ids everyday, all day up and down Columbia Road. then my dear nitwit - some of them do go to work - that's no big deal - but a great many of them don't. dishwashers, eating out? what the fuck are you talking about? second thought, never mind."

if i'm the one who's so narrow minded and self absorbed, why all the bad language? and what, you looking at someone when you have a tattoo is a crime now? can't we just all get along and love tacos?