Noise Levels

Well everyone, today I called my favorite restaurant to ask them if they play their music from a playlist and the guy told me that people play music from their Ipods and they have a jukebox.  I told him the reason I was wondering was because last night when I was one of just a few customers there, the music started off great and then turned into the song "I wanna sex you up," and I suspected deliberate harassment.  The manager was not happy to hear a legal word like that but really I am doing him a favor because they could get sued for stuff like that even though people who do that stuff think that people don't realize that they are humiliating people on purpose.  But some of us do know because we get treated that way all the time.  I don't think that case is as clear as when I was in a junk and antique store in Brooklyn and I was the only customer and there was just one piece-of-garbage male employee who immediately put in a C.D. that started with the song "I just want to m. l. to you." Oh, it's a classic alright, and as mad as I was, I didn't realize until later that what it really is is classic sexual harassment.  Another store in my neighborhood cranked up some nasty music past 100 decibels one day when I walked in but I stayed and bought some shoes and the store people were just young teens or twenty-somethings who I suspected had experienced more racism even than the blatant racial and sexual harassment they were treating me with right then so I did not even call their corporate office to complain.  But it is interesting to me that all these people think their offense and the deliberate nature of it is undetectable, because really it is pretty obvious, even amid all the offensive canned playlists from corporate offices that are meant to speed up their store traffic or build a brand that is officially too cool for people with morals or decency.  In the end, people will say it is free speech, but I don't think that's what they would so quickly defend if they heard me say my free speech that I usually say in those situations, which is "Death and Shame to you In The Name of Jesus Christ." I am sad, because all I really wanted was peace of mind, or in some cases, to have nice background music, which is also what I would rather hear than the agonized shrieking and wailing that all of humanity will hear and rejoice over when all those people and other rapists like them are burning in hell some day in a future that actually isn't that far away.