Pink Dot Of Shame
2011-Sep-09, Friday 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
samthebraveLast week we (my roommate Stephen and I) took a field trip to the Children’s museum of Saint Paul. Though we were there for a specific purpose, we were also intending on having a little bit of fun. He is a graphic designer in search of a new position that hopefully will be more interesting and possibly more lucrative and will be interviewing there soon, so there was company research involved. That and some G rated amusement.
Upon admission to the all the glorious exhibits we paid our fees and were given stickers to wear that showed we were legitimate clients. Kids just walked or ran in depending on how well they could each contain their own excitement. Guardians of said children were given a green sticker. We were given a big bright pink sticker. This is a good system. If a person wearing a bright pink sticker is leaving the building with a child, um yeah. Someone will immediately take notice and will be stopped and certainly questioned at the very least. Everyone feels safe. I was honored to establish that fact and know that I would be leaving alone and everyone would know that no harm would come to any precious little person.
Ah, but there is a catch. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s along with Jews wearing arm bands and later numbers and even later noxious gas and lime, it is highly rumored that homosexuals were labeled with pink dots similar to the dots we were to wear at the museum. The children could have cared less about our Scarlet Letters. They are pure and innocent and wouldn’t look twice at any human that didn’t warrant some sort of predisposition for being a jerk. The green dotted daddies, looked at us curiously but also didn’t care other than thinking that on a Sunday afternoon without children they’d be drinking beer and watching a football game so we must be losers. The mothers were another story altogether. We were watched closely in peripheral vision with the corner of the stink eye as though we might be predators, and curiously wondering if we were on the prowl for single mothers as well as where is my child in relation to this pink dot man.
It was very amusing in an incredibly uncomfortable way. Next time I go, I am either bringing a kid or owning it with a crudely spoken tee-shirt that says I am just here for the moms. I recommend you do the same because those mom’s curiosities were fierce and that is putting it quite mildly. And if you are one of them, and you are wondering what sort of ruckus we caused, I do think he’ll have a more successful interview and I got two phone numbers and a toddler in my basement.
Upon admission to the all the glorious exhibits we paid our fees and were given stickers to wear that showed we were legitimate clients. Kids just walked or ran in depending on how well they could each contain their own excitement. Guardians of said children were given a green sticker. We were given a big bright pink sticker. This is a good system. If a person wearing a bright pink sticker is leaving the building with a child, um yeah. Someone will immediately take notice and will be stopped and certainly questioned at the very least. Everyone feels safe. I was honored to establish that fact and know that I would be leaving alone and everyone would know that no harm would come to any precious little person.
Ah, but there is a catch. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s along with Jews wearing arm bands and later numbers and even later noxious gas and lime, it is highly rumored that homosexuals were labeled with pink dots similar to the dots we were to wear at the museum. The children could have cared less about our Scarlet Letters. They are pure and innocent and wouldn’t look twice at any human that didn’t warrant some sort of predisposition for being a jerk. The green dotted daddies, looked at us curiously but also didn’t care other than thinking that on a Sunday afternoon without children they’d be drinking beer and watching a football game so we must be losers. The mothers were another story altogether. We were watched closely in peripheral vision with the corner of the stink eye as though we might be predators, and curiously wondering if we were on the prowl for single mothers as well as where is my child in relation to this pink dot man.
It was very amusing in an incredibly uncomfortable way. Next time I go, I am either bringing a kid or owning it with a crudely spoken tee-shirt that says I am just here for the moms. I recommend you do the same because those mom’s curiosities were fierce and that is putting it quite mildly. And if you are one of them, and you are wondering what sort of ruckus we caused, I do think he’ll have a more successful interview and I got two phone numbers and a toddler in my basement.
