Idle, throwaway thoughts about race.

At the laundromat with time to kill while two huge machines washed a small portion of our voluminous dirty laundry I ruminated on race: the huge 'Spin Cycle' laundry, one of 256 of a chain, services a dozen races and more on Pico in LA, near La Brea.

I watched an African American (this term has more or less officially replaced 'Black' in current parlance, although there are many holdouts I understand) doing his own laundry, as different from that of his whole family.  Most of the time his back was to me; on the back of his T-shirt was stenciled, "I am therefore I be. - I. B. Blackman."

As a white man struggling sincerely to be colorblind - after all I'm in an interracial marriage with three various shades of brown children, I've been spellbound following as best I can Bill Cosby's criticism of greater African American culture. I won't even attempt to hint at the content of his complaints: to do so would be presumptious. Just the same I suspect, have a hunch, dare to slowly put forward, that ol' loveable Bill, collector of rare Editions of Mark Twain - Bill is a humorist ya know - might not be too happy about the writing on the back of the Black man's T-shirt. After I let it sink in I had the temerity to ask the wearer about the deliberate misquote of Descartes' (Rene 1596 - 1650 French Philosopher) "I think, therefore I am." He mumbled but was not insulted in his 'I dunno' reply. But later when I was inadvertently blocking his way to his dryer, it seemed he was livid. I can't be certain, doing laundry is not usually a favorite chore even though the machines do all the work.

In another journal entry I'll have to tell the tale of my having 'stolen' ten dollars from a machine that changes twenty dollar bills into quarters. Oh yes, they exist! They caught me on surveillance tape. The depths of my humiliation was deep sea. But, the tale has a more or less happy ending. By the tenets of a Conservative branch of Judaism I am innocent. Besides, I returned the money when I suspected I might be guilty. This is an advertisement for my next (?) journal entry.

So, with that off my conscience I can resume about the Black man. Wearing that T-shirt could be an innocent act. He wears it cause it fits, perhaps. I do that: to hell with what it says, if it fits I wear it. But, if he selected the T-shirt BECAUSE OF WHAT IT SAYS then, gasp, he's foot shufflin', the very thing that I suspect Bill Cosby is so infuriated by, in this late hour of 2006. Choosing the T-shirt in definace, is only a partial defense; what about the example for Black children?

And here endeth my dangerous foray into politics.

Barry