cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Race Well, that was weird. Some dude just walked into our office and went over to Mandy's desk and was asking her something in a very low voice. And she responded in the negative. He looked briefly around the room and then left. When the door closed, we all asked her what that was about. She says he was randomly asking her for gas money. WTF? Wandering in off the street into someone's office to ask them for gas money? Then she said that she saw him trying the knob of the office next door. Now. Everyone is making these comments like the guy is a thief and casing the place or up to something and I'm trying to defend him, saying that who knows what one might do under similar circumstances if one was completely out of gas with no money in a very inconvenient place. The kicker here is that the dude happens to be a young, dark-skinned black male dressed in baggy clothes. So what I'm wondering is whether everyone would have been making these same comments if he was white. Hard to say. This would have been an odd thing no matter what he looked like. If he had been white, I don't think that everyone in the office would have been so afraid of him. But they would have been just as suspicious. Had it been a white woman dressed like a middle class person, I would have ran out in the hallway after Mandy told me what she'd asked and I'd have given her all the cash in my pocket. How fucked up is that? I was aware enough of the injustice of all these people judging him that way that I openly disagreed and sympathized with what he said his situation was. And yet I had the same suspicion that he was up to something. In fact, after he walked out the door I pulled my briefcase up right next to my chair and unzipped the top. So that if he were to walk back in and go apeshit, I could draw my revolver in the space of a second or 2. It's sitting right next to me as I type this. Is it wrong that I take this precaution in reaction to his visit when I would do nothing of the kind had he been a white woman? Does the fact that I vocally defended him even as I felt just as suspicious change anything? All questions worth thinking about some more. 13:48 - 2008-04-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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