NEEDLING

Some of my customers have once again proven their great sense of humanity. As I’ve said before, I work in a predominantly republican neighborhood. Most of the people who come into my store drive large gas-guzzling SUV’s, and have consistently fought any sort of public transportation to come into this part of town. You know, so that people like myself don’t have to spend their entire salary on their vehicles, and to keep the riff-raffs away. These people, when they’re not working, are buying booze from me and going to the lake to float around all afternoon. I wouldn’t mind doing the same thing every once in a while, but there are few to no public accesses, public parks or public picnic grounds are inexistent. Unless you own a boat, or you own property right on the lake, or you have friends that do, then you’re stuck far away from the water. Blablabla, I digress.

One of my regulars, a white man in his early fifties, came in as he does just about every day to buy his pint of Jack Daniels, a couple diet cokes, and a pack of cigarettes.

“Have you seen what’s going in New Orleans?” He starts, as if anybody anywhere close to the south or anywhere in the United States doesn’t know what’s been happening in the gulf region in and around Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. “And those looters, isn’t that just terrible.” Then with a grin on his face, bending over, lowering his voice, speaking “white to white” – I hate it when people, just because of what I look like decide to include me in their usually unpleasant little worlds – said “I’m not prejudice, but I didn’t see a single white face in the bunch.”

“Well, sir, New Orleans is a predominantly black city, and people there are so poor, it shouldn’t even be allowed to be that poor in America. You’ve never seen such poverty.”

I wasn’t trying to excuse any looting. First of all I’m not there and I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like, but this man with his racist allusions, was really starting to get on my nerves. On top of it all, he was including me, as if it was understood that I thought and felt just like he did. Don’t assume I’m a bigot just because you are.

As he walked out the door, not really understanding that poverty could even exist in America, this man furthered himself in his idiocy showing his true colors, by saying: “I guess they’re stealing a microwave, or whatever, so that when the whites come back, who no longer own a microwave or whatever, they can sell them the microwave and make a little money, since they’re so poor.” And he walked out the door. I really don’t know if he was being serious – I think he was – or whether he was so hateful and insensitive, that he thought he was being funny and or ironic.

Anybody who starts a sentence with “I’m not prejudice, but...” or “It’s not that I have anything against woman drivers, but...” “I’m not racist or anything, but...” “I’m not homophobic or nothing, but....” or whatever, there are thousands of such examples, is basically admitting exactly what he or she is claiming to not be. Yes, you are prejudice, would you ever have had that conversation with a non-white? With a black person? No, probably not.

The next customer who walked in was a black man in his forties. I really wished he had come in just a few minutes before.

(I don’t want to keep repeating what I read in “leftist” blogs all the time: that racism is mostly an older white man’s problem. You know, The Old Big and Fat White Man is now the stereotype for everything that’s wrong in the world... and like all stereotypes, it’s completely wrong. Racism and bigotry comes in all shapes, colors, and sexes.)

Later on, another customer walked in. This time a white woman, probably in her early forties. She started telling me how her ex-husband was from New Orleans, and that her ex-husband’s family was now crashing in Austin at various relatives. She then told me how, when she was married, they’d visit New Orleans several times a year, “and really, you know, that place was sooo dirty, it really needed a big clean-up.”

She was standing at the door about to walk out, waiting for some kind of approval from me. I was simply in shock at what I’d just heard. She saw this and tried to justify herself before walking out. “But the streets were so dirty, full of drugs, and violent crimes...”

I wasn’t budging. I guess I’m a coward, I should have told her how terrible a person she was for thinking such a thought.

Finally, I said, “I’ve lived in New Orleans, and let me tell you, New Orleans is a great city, and I love that city.”

She left.

(For news stories related to New Orleans, go on NOLA.com.)