Tuesday, September 25, 2012

He's one of us

For my brother-in-law's birthday, we celebrated in Connecticut by playing paintball. Some of the members on our team were not a apart of our family so we had to make sure we knew them so we wouldn't attack them. At any moment, yout own team member could shoot you if they did not remember how you look. We would quickly exclaim, "dont shoot, hes one of us!"

I was on the train this morning, a seat became available and an Asian man approached the seat at the same time three black women were approaching it (myself included). Personally, I thought his approach was foul because he practically weaved his way in but then I thought  a series of thought "big deal", "survival of the fittest", "men get tired too", "he was probably hoping he would get a seat and now he was thankful that he did". A woman and her daughter started a conversation that I was not privy to hearing, clearly it was some criticism of this man's actions because it sparked his response
Asian man: do you want to sit?
Black woman: no
Asian man: the only reason I sat here is because there was another seat available there (points to a location two seats down.suggesting that her daughter could have sat there)
Black woman: I am not talking to you, I am talking to my daughter

Have we really evolved that much?

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” Maya Angelou

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