my lunch time…monday thru friday is my time. it’s my zen time. it’s when i go into an optic and mental trance. that is the time i must leave the cold air-conditioned confines of my office and find an outside breeze. i’ll take my little purple lunch bag and a book, magazine or the paper and chill. expand my mind somewhere far away from the cold cruel monotony of my workspace. it’s my recess, it’s where all my brain minions frolic and dance about wearing yellow flowing dresses with daisies in hand. and one little minion will pick up a guitar and go into kick arse cover tunes doing some jay-z or alana davis or even an old cat stevens tune. my alone time. it’s as needed as the air i live on.today however, i was invited out to lunch by my partner in crime. she had invited me and a newer co-worker of ours. we’ll call her samantha. but first, my partner in crime. she’s like…well, we’re cohorts. usually if you see one of us, you’ll see the other. we’ve known each other for about two years and we can talk about anything. things that have clearly violated our company’s sexual harassment policy and things as minute as gossip and reality tv shows. we can go from our heated disagreement about angelina jolie (i am team jolie) to presidential candidates and the war. we can go from personal to political in 2 seconds flat. we can laugh, we can disagree and when we do disagree, we usually end up laughing about it. she’s a fly little fashionista and she makes me listen to her mp3 player, which is a wicked mix of the killers, keyshia cole, country music and 50 cent. i’d essentially like to call her my ‘nigga’ and contrary to what people may think, i use that word for all the races. i don’t really mind that. but to set the record straight, she is white, blond, blue eyes and very very crazy. yet she’s a mom, and is married and is very very crazy.
the other girl, samantha is cool too. she’s more of my height, which is rare and she’s a bright, english major. she’s funny and sarcastic and generally a cool chick to talk to.
so i agree to go. they decided upon a pizza joint because according to the legend “the cute boys go there for lunch.” let it be known, the food was great…cute boys were few and far between. so i point out one guy. i say, (to make them feel better), “that guy’s not bad.” and samantha says, “he’s ghetto.” okay. i saw nothing ‘ghetto’ about this white guy with a goatee. so i asked her why and she threw the answer to an area of town in another city and said that i’d have to know the area to find out what she was talking about. she also said she had done the “ghetto” thing before. (strike one)
then samantha proceeds to tell us about a movie she saw and how hilarious it was. “oh my gosh, it was so funny.” she said. and decided to talk about a scene where someone is saying something about “it’s negro day” and on “negro day there’s a dance.” (strike two) in the film, michelle pfeiffer then says “that’s not good, it’s not the ‘white’ or right thing to do.” and i mean this girl is reciting this as if it were ingenious. and samantha is saying, “it was soooo funny. i can’t believe they said that.” (strike three)
at that moment, i felt extremely conscious of my race. and isolated. a black girl sitting beside one white girl and across from another. and someone that i thought was cool has said something that is firstly not funny and to me is not a wise thing to say because she nor i know each other very well. few times in my life have i felt that steely, stillness of isolation because of my race toward a person sitting a foot from me. and a big part of it has to do with the fact that i had thought this girl was alright. my cohort and i can discuss race down to the bones of it and agree (so far). maybe i took that for granted. after the scene synopsis, even my cohort seemed unimpressed and a bit stilted. oh, the film was the new “hairspray” movie.
the least race conscious i’ve ever felt was as a student in boston, massachusetts, where most everyone i knew was dating someone of a different race, even i. and the most conscious of my skin, i’ve felt in ohio. i can remember walking home from school one day, i think i was in middle school and hearing someone yell, “nigger” from a passing car. unfortunately for them, because of the way i was raised, that word did no harm to me or my agenda to try and love other people whatever complexion they may have.
man, will we ever change?
songs played during my rant.
cat stevens>where do the children play
cat stevens>wild world
cece peniston>keep on walking
chaka khan>ain’t nobody
das efx>they want fx
and
dave matthews band>two step
dwele>hold on
superheros>esthero
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