12th
I Should Know By Now
I’ve got quirks.
There are things that I really like, a lot. And there are things that I generally don’t care much for (that’s actually a long list…).
For example, I’m funny about my coffee. Given a choice, I would only drink Starbucks coffee for the rest of my life (and even into eternity). I live in a Starbucks-rut and order the same thing 88-94% of the time I go there (Quad Grande Americano).
Even though it’s hard for me to drink non-Starbucks coffee, I’ll basically sleep just about anywhere. Really. That is, if I’m not hopped-up on caffeine.
Wait. I take that back. I’ll sleep almost anywhere, outside is pushing it for me. Once I actually slept out in the woods/wilderness with the Bakers—no tent! Personally, I’d rather sleep on the streets of Cairo or Calcutta than in nature.
Anyway, I’ve slept in the Pink Flamingo brothel in Jinja, Uganda (it’s okay, Phileena was there too); spent a few nights in a Sudanese refugee camp in northern Kenya; stayed in a pretty rough slum in Goa, India; slept my way through all sorts of monasteries, convents, and pilgrim’s houses nearly the entire way across northern Spain.
Over the past 15 years I’ve spent more than 50 nights sweating sleeping on second-class, non-air-conditioned sleeper trains throughout India. There might be airlines banning me from future travel on their fleets because of all the grease-spots left by my forehead on pull down airplane tray-tables. And airports… oh man, how many airports must I have slept in over the years?
I’ve also slept in some pretty nice places too. I’d be embarrassed to list some of them. The most recent, however, caught me off guard.
So I was at a conference this past week. A couple friends said they had a room for me at this little club near the conference center. We showed up and yep, the so-called little club was the Yale Club of New York City.
As soon as I walked in, wearing my traditional “WMF business casual,” I started getting the stares, glances, and disapproving looks. At the check-in counter there was only 1 piece of information that you could take with you: the “Dress Code” card thoughtfully prepared by the “House Committee.” I took a copy and kept it in my pocket all week as a constant reminder of how uncomfortable I was making everyone in the club.
Actually other than my room, the elevator was literally the only place in the whole joint where I could hang out, I was basically fast tracked from the front door to the elevator every time I walked in. And my first Yale Club elevator experience was pretty interesting. For the entire ride up to the 9th floor, a kind, yet smug, gentleman felt obligated to volunteer some helpful information—basically, that I should promptly change into something more appropriate.
My version of leather shoes, khakis, and black jacket (technically: Rainbow sandals, tan Banana Republic shorts—torn in multiple places—and a TWLOHA hoodie) apparently don’t count as traditional business attire or business casual dress.
Every time I walked back into the hotel I would immediately be accosted by 2 or 3 doormen, quickly crowding around me and gently, but firmly asking, “Good evening sir, are you a guest here? Oh really? Would you mind showing me some I.D. and your room key?”
Classic.
By now, I should be used to this. I’ve had plenty of awkward exchanges re: dress codes (from the U.S. State Department to an earnest dean of chapel at a Midwestern Christian University). Most of them ended well, but none of them were easy.
What’s most surprising is that when I was in 1st and 2nd grade I want to Catholic school and had to wear the same uniform every day. I was even a little “fascist” for a few years—oops, I mean Boy Scout—and had to wear a little blue military-esque uniform then, too. It seems like I should have been institutionalized enough by those experiences to be happy enough to suit-up in a uniform today. But something in me resists that form of reductionism and commodification.
And though the intentional conflict of not pandering to the uniforms of the empire is sometimes energizing for me, I usually feel pretty bummed out about it all. The Yale Club was wasted on me. It was a SUPER nice place and my friend’s generosity in putting me up there was more than kind (thanks). But all the glares, folded arms and darting eyes, and inhospitable gestures remind me what it must be like for my friends who live and work on the streets or in red-light districts. And I know I have it easy compared to the ways they must get hassled and dehumanized.
Please don’t misread this as judgment against the “House Committee’s” rules, they’re free to make just about any rules they want. Really. I got rules too (if you visit me at my townhouse, one of them is that you have to drink a lot of wine with me—just kidding… sort of).
The bigger issue is that if we can’t learn to accept each other as we are and for who we are, then marginalization, exploitation, and division will win the day. And dang, if I have to dress up for the government, a Christian college, or even something as simple as getting a bed, how much harder must it be for people who don’t have the luxury to dress-up on someone else’s terms?
If people have a hard time accepting me for who I am, those same people are going to need a lot more grace to accept my friends who are poor—the ones who really need acceptance.
