Last night was Halloween, my husband and I love Halloween, it's the one night of the year we can just blend in with the rest of the world. We wore beautiful hand made costumes based on Elizabethan designs. People all over stopped and complemented the costumes and how beautiful we looked.
One really intoxicated girl tried to steal the hat off my head and she failed. She started ranting and raving about how I could never understand that she wanted something so she'd just take it. How I was a rich girl with rich clothes who could never "get" that she was poor and had nothing.
I made those costumes all week by hand, from scraps of cloth I found at a thrift store, as I don't have a sewing machine. I didn't tell her that I usually wear over 8 piercings in my face alone, that I was at one time a street kid myself and that I had long blonde dreadlocks under my wig. I didn't tell her that I know what it is to be so hungry you eat out of garbage cans and so cold you huddle next to air vents for heat at night... She didn't seem to care too much about me anyway.
My point is that she like so many people out there that I've encountered, based her idea of my social position on the clothing I was wearing.
Usually people think I'm a street kid still. They think that I am going to ask them for money (even though I've never been a "spanger" ) when I ask for the time. They think it's okay to point and laugh and to walk up to me and scream and spit and call me names. They think I don't have any feelings, or that I'm trying to portray an "image" They think a lot of things that just aren't true. and they say a lot of things that are truly deeply painful;, because they are ignorant and they are cowardly.
I have been a vegan for over 12 years. I am socially conscious and make socially responsible decisions. I don't drink alcohol, I don't use illicit substances, and I don't kick people when they're down. I also don't hate people that I don't understand. Sure there are things about people's actions that really piss me off, but, I never base my opinions of people on the way they choose to dress. That's just silly.
My whole life has been subject to ridicule and hate. People walk up to me and tell me all manner of things they think I need to know. They tell me I'm hideous, they tell me I'm revolting, that I'm scary, weird, stupid, wearing a mask, ugly, goth, punk, metal. They ask me why would I since I'm such a pretty girl? They tell me I'm going to Hell , I'm hurting god, I'm hurting myself, that I must enjoy pain. That I will never have a good job. I don't think any of the things they think are true.
They never ask my name.
I live in one of the nicest condo complexes in Seattle, in one of the nicest neighborhoods, I pay top dollar for it and though I don't think it affords me any special privilege I think it does afford me the respect of my neighbors. People in my own building some times think I don't live here or that I "got in the building" in some devious way. Mostly because they think a person that looks like me couldn't possibly make good money.
They are living the definition of Bigotry. Look it up sometime.
I was born to severe poverty. I raised myself on the street. I put myself through college while living on couches and under bridges. I worked VERY hard to get to where I am and I think I deserve every little thing I have and own. I worked harder than most people will ever even think about possibly working. I've faced demons most people can't imagine facing, and I've come out alive, happy, healthy and a good person as a result.
On the off days, when I take out my piercings (for a dental appointment, or a special event, or just because) people don't come up to me unless it's to tell me they think I'm beautiful, or to ask how I got so thin (I'm 5'8 and 114 pounds). People ask me if I'm a model, or if I'm a famous person. I get" Hey are you Lady gaga?!" a lot.
My point here is that people all around me every single day I go out into the world base their opinion of who I am on the clothing I wear, and I'm tired of it.
This blog is to document significant events in my life based on the public's view of me and the clothes I wear. Hopefully it will serve to enlighten and educate some narrow minded people out there that would otherwise have no idea how the world out there isn't based solely on the clothing on a person's back, but rather their actions that truly speak of who they are in this life.
