Anyhoo.
This post is rather hard for me to write, because it not only:
(a) tackles a sensitive subject
(b) it makes me come off as an asshole/bigot/jerk and
(c) I'm devoting way too many written words to a small moment that took place over the course of ten seconds (cf my previous post re Henry James' writing style...).
But yesterday afternoon, I was sitting on a bench outside of Book Court on my old block, revising a short story. This shabbily dressed guy comes up to me, waving a bill. "Do you have change for a dollar?" he said. We didn't all grow up in some farm town in Minnesota--when strangers come up to you on the street, more often than not, it's to harass you about something. My first instinctual response was, "No, sorry," yet as I was saying it, I realized he needed change for the parking meter. I started pedaling backwards. "Oh, sorry, I got rid of all my quarters this morning," which was true--I was buying gum at 2:30am that very day at the Korean deli (where I got the KP hookup--the guy threw in some extra chocolates too, which he does each time I frequent his store). Then I started to feel really disappointed in myself. Why was I so quick to stereotype? What happened to, I don't know, a sense of shared humanity, or other blahbiddy blah blah utopian bullsh*t?
I thought about how the guy asking for change maybe had to face this kind of behavior every day, and maybe if he feels sad about life (I should probably mention right about now that he was black, and NO I'm not going to say African-American because (a) I think it's a fake PC term and (b) it's actually a misnomer, because it doesn't include those of West Indian or Caribbean descent, who do NOT identify with the term AA).
I thought about heuristics, which are essentially these mechanisms people rely on to quickly make decisions, based on our personal (and often repeated) experiences. Whether they're accurate or not is a whole different story. (cf Nobel prize winning social psychologist Daniel Kahneman.) I also thought about stereotype threat, and how there's this computer "game" study where different (colored) people's faces pop up on the screen, and you're supposed to pick which +/- adjective would describe them (cf implicit association test). You are "primed" with +/- details about the particular ethnic group beforehand (like, Nelson Mandela, W.E.B. duBois, MLK; VS. Tupac, drugs, violence, etc).
Then I thought, well, people who don't know me probably make the same assumptions about me--e.g., playing the piano, driving badly, being good with numbers (all of which, funny enough, are true).
Anyway: does this make me a racist? Probably. Am I still disappointed with myself for being so quick to judge? Yes. But I think it's also what--for better or for worse--makes me a New Yorker, and not some tweed blazered academic from the midwest, sitting in an ivory tower. Because let's say I did reach for my wallet while sitting on that bench, thinking, sure, I'll gladly help you out. And what if 9 times out of 10 it's a normal person, but that one time it's not, the person you're trying to help makes a grab for your wallet? I don't really know the answer to this one, but feel free to adjust your previously held positive judgments of me...
Maybe if any of you guys have any related experiences you want to share, I'd love to read your comments.
(photo courtesy of TheSituationistFiles.Wordpress.com)
2 comments:
I don't think you need to be so hard on yourself. It's not like you were rude to him. You just told the truth which is that you didn't have any quarters. Also, I feel like the shabbily dressed part is kind of relevant. I bet if a black person in a suit or nice jeans and shirt approached, you wouldn't have felt the same way. And that if a white person dressed poorly had come up to you, you would have felt nervous. Anyway, this scenario still doesn't make you look as ridiculous as I did 2 weeks ago when I was walking down the street in the middle of the da. As I passed this dude, he yelled "HEY" and I glanced over and saw I didn't know him and he yelled HEY again really loudly and aggressively at me. I proceeded to run full speed down the block flailing my arms wildly whilst people looked at me like I was a lunatic. I later determined it was just Chava's boyfriend saying hello. Ok, that last part isn't true, but it would have made the story funnier.
Thanks, Jessi--I think you have a good point. Also, it really WOULD have made the story funnier if it were Chava's boyfriend... ha ha! I wonder who he was? Maybe Juan--he always looks sketchy when he grows out his beard.
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