Erin’s Story
A few nights ago, I was walking home from Theo’s, a dingy little restaurant on the outskirts of Lansing. I was strolling down Albert Street, completely alone. Because it was so late, no people were out on their porches. No cars were going by on the streets. There was nothing out there but me, a 20 year-old woman, my only weapon my purse and laptop case. All of a sudden, I heard a trampling from across the street, and a guy — around my age — came sprinting down the sidewalk, screaming to his two male companions about how fast he can run while drunk. This made me a little nervous, but I figured they were relatively harmless MSU students, lost on their way home from a party. Suddenly, one of them turned around and yelled to someone passing by in a car, “Billy Crystal is a faggot.” In the privacy of my own apartment, I do not pay much attention to political correctness. However, I do not use words such as “faggot” in public, as people who hear it may take me seriously and, in turn, feel intimidated by the word’s usage. I gave the young man a stern look, a small way of letting him know that his language was not okay with me. As an unarmed woman walking the streets alone at night, confronting him in any other way was out of the question. Soon I realized even this small confrontation was a mistake.
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