Learning Something New Every Day

I moved from rich white land (Frisco, Texas) to rich white land surrounded by poor minorities (Stamford, Connecticut). There have been many differences between the two, but the main difference is here in Stamford there is a minority standing on every other street corner. It doesn't seem to matter if it's Sunday at 6:00am or Thursday at 11:00pm. He will be there just chilling out, watching the traffic go by and giving folks like me the "fuck you white bread" look. For the most part I've done a great job of keeping an open mind, accepting that I was born and raised in Montana (read: a bunch of white christians with some indians here and there) and that things are different (yet not bad and in turn I should not fear) in different parts of the country.

Yesterday I was driving home from ninja college with the windows down as it was a really hard workout and I was sweating profusely. As I pulled up to the stop light that's right across the street from my apartment I made eye contact with one of these friendly minorities who was just chilling on the street corner, wearing sweat pants and hoodie in the rain at 9:30pm on a Wednesday (nothing weird about that...right?). Something I've learned from the animal kingdom is the one who maintains eye contact the longest is the alpha male. Well I sure ain't no bitch, so I maintain the eye contact and our friendly minority who's chilling in the rain on a Wednesday night by himself starts to stroll towards my 2007 Audi A3. Maintaining eye contact, he gets closer, has his hand in his pocket and starts to cross the street. At this point I'm thinking one of two things: I'm going to die or I'm going to be raped and then die. I quickly break eye contact (read: admit I'm the bitch) to glance at the stop light. The opposite street light is yellow, now red. I return to our local corner watchman as he gets closer to my car, now I glance back to the stop light, they're both red. Back to minority, I shake my head side to side in a cool manner to give him the "nah bro, I wanna live tonight" sign, remove my foot from the break, look at the stop light which has now turned green and drive across the street to the saftey of my rich white person apartment building.

In my rearview mirror I keep an eye on the corner man, he continued walking as if he had no intention of even approaching me, crosses the street and hangs out on the other corner until I've driven out of site. Once I park my car and get to a position where I can see the street corner I find our neighborhood watchman back on the original side, chilling in the rain at 9:30pm on a Wednesday. As I pondered this event before I went to bed it dawned on me that he was approaching me to sell drugs. There was nothing to fear, the man was just trying to turn a dollar the best way he knew how. This helped solidify my beliefs that although people and things are different than they were while I was growing up in Montana, it doesn't make them fundamentally wrong, just different.

So this morning I query one of my minority friends that I met while I was living in the worst state in American (that's right, the one where that stupid woman who ran with McCain for President originally came from. A to the motherfucking K.) Don't get me wrong, great place to visit, shitty place to live. As I was saying I asked one of my friends about my experience and he replied with this (his words, not mine. Remember, he's a minority too. I think there are laws that protect him):

yeah, i remember when i learned what black people are for. it was awesome.

"let me up on a 20" should do.