Monday, December 15, 2008

Welcome To My World

That's what I would have said to him if it were me.

I was sitting on the train on my way to work, my headphones in my ears, blissfully minding my own business. First let me explain the CTA a little for yall. We have different colored lines; my train goes south into downtown. From the first stop to downtown, all you see are black people with a few mexicans and fewer white people. Once the train hits downtown and heads to the north side the demographics flip and there are all white people with few blacks and mexicans.

A white guy had gotten on the train with his bike, and was partially blocking the entrance to the train so if someone wanted to get on he would have had to move his bike. But I resumed my world watching out the train window. Suddenly there was this huge commotion, and as I turned I saw a black woman slap the mans bike out the way, throwing a huge thermos down the aisle of the train that splashed everywhere (im so glad I wasn't sitting over there). Apparently shed asked him to move and he didn't so she pushed the bike out the way.

Im not an advocate of force, so I felt a little bad for the guy. But the fight was not over. The woman stood up to exit the train and the shit really hit the fan. They exchanged some heated "fuck you"s and he called her a few kinds of "bitch" and THEN he said it:

"It's hard being white in a black man's world!"

Yall, when I say I was dying laughing, I mean Im sure I was red from trying to keep from bustin up out loud. Im laughing now as I write this, and it definitely happened like two days ago.

On the one hand, that's the funniest shit I've ever heard, and something I never thought id hear. On the other hand, Im insulted. I immediately thought about how we have a black president now and I don't appreciate the thought that just because we have a black president this is a "black mans world". Because the truth of the matter is, we're still the minority. We still get persecuted, we still have stereotypes, we still are, in some places, oppressed. People are still prejudiced against us.

However, that was just so funny and random that I had to share it.

Work has been good. They taught me how to work the register, and hopefully they'll start putting me on it more. I like working with money. I don't like walking the sales floor as much, but my coworkers make it fun sometimes and often the customers are nice.

And by the way, partying and working retail do not a very happy Demiera make, so Im spending today recovering my feet which are rebelling from being stuffed in 4 inch stiletto boots and nursing my very empty and very unhappy stomach back into full health WHILE fixing the knees that give out every other day.

The things we do for money.

1 comment:

BongFlo said...

you bet! we gotta do what we gotta do for money. the nice thing about it is the experience that goes along with it. look at it this way, money can buy you anything, it can even hide all the deformities in our life BUT money can't buy you happiness. forget that rebellious feet, those can be rested, forget that unhappy stomach, you will have your fill. at the end of the day, it will all boil down to the happy experiences you had and the faces of life that put a smile on your face. be happy! ciao!