While seated in a waiting area at LAX Monday morning, two women of a certain age and class and race arrived at Gate 23. Loudly. Grandly. As if making an entrance at a cocktail party. As if they were the only people traveling to Boston that morning. As if Alice Harvey characters in a New Yorker cartoon. As if the waiting area were their own, personal space. Operating on that assumption, one of them, the redhead, threw her jacket over a waiting area chair—connected, of course, to another, back-to-back chair—so that her insouciantly-thrown jacket obstructed the empty chair on the other side vacated by my husband. (Who sat on it when he returned.)
There was something so egregiously la-di-da about that redhead and her blonde BFF! So infuriating. So annoying that the middle-aged man whose family, I am guessing, originated from the Indian subcontinent, seated at the end of the row, caught my eye and raised his eyebrows. So I got up and whispered to him, “I hate white people!”
Oh, my, Reader, how he laughed! “You know,” he told me. “I will remember this for weeks and will still laugh!”
But here’s the thing, Dear Reader. When it was time to board I realized that I, too, had insouciantly thrown my jacket on the chair beside my husband, thereby forcing people to sit somewhere else.
So, yeah: Me, too.
True true true. Manners, meaning somewhat arbitrary ways to recognize the existence of others, that we are taught by our mothers, don’t really get to the heart of things, do they? But maybe kindness and awareness, and their opposites, are centrally important.
Dear David,
Well, hello, there, David, my so, so very dear and awesome brotherfriend! WOW, David, WOW, here, my brother! I love your great comment above! I just so love and enjoy when you comment with your so very cool in spirit and Spirit thoughts, ideas, and comments, my dear brother, David! Brother David, I, too, say a heartily resounding, “True true true,” in such a delightful response you have here to dear Patricia’s as usual as always once again brilliant, absolutely brilliant blog post article here, my brother, just as you, brother, have beautifully composed such another very keen and insightful comment here with your astounding thoughts, ideas, and comments, David! My dear brotherfriend,YOU and Patricia are blessed with such blessedly sharp insight, discernment, and awareness, David!!!! WOW, David, you’re so very chock full of such astute and acute sagacity, my dear brother! Brother, WOW, I always love and enjoy your splendid comments and keen perception, my so very absolutely awesome brotherfriend, David!!!!! WOW!!!!! Brother, please have such a wondrously wonderful Wednesday and may all of your very days be so very especially blessed, David!!!!! David, YOU are such a joy and a blessing, and so are all of your absolutely FANTASTIC comments with your very marvelous thoughts, ideas, and comments which I always so enjoy, my so very dear and awesome brother!!!!!! YOU and Patricia have such a blessed gift and talent for certain when it comes to crafting such outstanding and right on words in all of your great composition!!!!!! 🙂
Peace and Love in spirit and Spirit FOR YOU always, my so very dear brotherfriend, David, 🙂
Your sister For Always in the spirit and Spirit,
Sherry Gordon in Iowa City, Iowa
Dear Patricia,
Well, hello, there, Patricia, and greetings and salutations to you and to you AND FOR VERY ESPECIALLY FOR YOU, my so, so very FOR ALWAYS soul sisterfriend, awesomely precious and dearly special Christian Quaker woman who you’re For Always so, so very much!!!! WOW, sister, WOW here, Patricia!!!!! WOW, what an awesome and fantastically fun-filled blog post article here by absolutely FANTASTIC YOU, sistah!!!!! WOW!!!!! It is also such a joyous blessing to read above David’s very keenly brilliant comment with his sharply perceptive thoughts, ideas, and comments!!!! I always so love and enjoy all of David’s very astounding comments with his great ideas, thoughts, comments, and his delightful keen percerption, my sistah and brotha!!!!! WOW, sistah, I’m just so, so very glad, thrilled, overjoyed, and happy that you and your so very dearest and darling husband were able to travel. I pray, hope, and wish that you two had such an absolutely grand time and a fun and a safe trip! How fun for you both! Sister, I so love your keenly great and sharp sense of humor here Patricia, as you do your super reflection here on the two women and with one of them leaving her jacket on the chair that your husband accidentally sat on and your very outstanding full of such grace and good sense of humor with your self-reflection when you did the very same thing in leaving your jacket on an empty chair without thinking. WOW, sisterfriend, WOW, here, what great self-reflection and insight here with such a touch of being chock full of such grace and an added treat with such a splendid sense of humor, too, Patricia!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Sister, as I very happily with such blessed joy percolate on all of the remarkable words which you have shared with each of us here I think that sometimes people do things without really thinking on what they are doing and this can happen for sure for such cool in spirit and Spirit white persons. Along with this thought, white privilege can come into the equation and play a role in some of the thoughts, actions, and behaviors of awesome white people. As the black woman who I am I truly think, do, feel, believe, and say with all of my very, very heart, and very, very heart, mind, soul, and spirit with all that I have with all of my very believe think and feel that it's perfectly okay, normal, natural, and alright to be imperfect in both doing and thinking things without really thinking and also as to how superb white people do things based on white privilege. I think each and every one of you as such awesome white people deserve all of the chances and all of the room and space to learn, heal, and grow, and I for one as the indigent, disabled lesbian black woman who I am have all of the very time and all of the very patience in the world to work with each and every one of you as such cool in spirit and Spirit white persons along all of our very life's paths and journeys to work with all of your processing co-creating a better country, society, and world with more justice, equity, and fairness for all, Patricia!!!!! 🙂 <3 I so, so very much love and cherish each and every one of you as my super sisters and brothers as white people and our So, So Very Sweet Spirit's precious children!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Sistah, I love your so, so very cool and great conversation with the man who appeared to be South Asian!!! WOW, I love all of the so cool words in your great conversation with the both of you, sistahfriend, and I just had to smile!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Sistah, I laughed, too, from your very moving and astounding, so chock full of such good fun comment, just the way the man did who appeared to be South Asian, Patricia, and I just had to smile, too!!!!! 🙂 <3
Sistah, I so, so very much love, like, enjoy, and appreciate how you've as usual as always once again very graciously and generously featured and included with this very empowering blog post article some marvelous links here, Patricia!!!! WOW, Patricia, WOW, I so love and enjoy what's in these spectacular links here, sistah and friend of mine, Patricia!!!!! My friend, the comedian, Kumail Nanjiani is just brilliant, just absolutely brilliant and hilarious, sistah!!!! WOW!!!!! I'd not heard of him before, my so, so very dearest and darling sister and friend, Patricia, so I thank-YOU for providing this great information here regarding him and his work!!!!! WOW!!!!! I have to see his great film, The Big Sick-it sounds like it would be such great viewing pleasure, Patricia!!!!! I so loved and enjoyed how he talked about his interracial marriage to his wife, Emily Gordon, who is such a so, so very right on, wondrously wonderful white woman, Patricia!!!!!! I can connect to how they have faced hate and racism from people who do not approve of and do not accept their interracial marriage. I think of myself as the lesbian black woman who I am who so, so very much loves and cherishes so, so very right on, wondrously wonderful white women not only as the former partners I've had in interracial lesbian relationships so hoping, yearning, and longing for being in an interracial lesbian marriage someday with such an absolutely AWESOME, so, so very right on, wondrously wonderful white woman, but also that I love so white women as my so, so very dearest and darling, so, so very precious friends and sisters, too, like with YOU, my dear, dearest, precious Patricia, and my very, very many other white sisterfriends!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Watching and listening to this great video with this very witty comic I found that I could relate to the very meanness, racist and cruel comments they receive as a couple because I've experienced that with my past interracial lesbian relationships and even receiving hate and racism and such mean-spirited comments with the wonderful white women in my very life who are my awesome friends and sisters as my so, so very right on, wondrously wonderful soul sisterfriends, Patricia!!!!! It is very important for me to note here that in the past and at present a lot of that hate and prejudice ALSO is coming from very, very many other black people!!!!!!! Add to all of that the added components of heterosexism and homophobia!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!! UGH!!!!!!! Sistah, I so, so very much love and cherish YOU, Patricia, and each and every one of you as such so, so very right on, wondrously wonderful white women thinking so, so very highly of each of you as such awesome white women being such so, so very good people, so, so very kind, caring, nice, loving, friendly, sweet, goodnatured, and so goodhearted!!!!! 🙂 <3 Patricia, you all as such wonderful white women are by very, very far my very favorites among white people but also by very, very far my very favorites among all people in general!!!!! 🙂 <3 I count YOU, sistah and friend of mine, Patricia, and other super white women as my very life and eternal blessings, and I thank God continually for YOU, sister and friend of mine, Patricia, and I thank-YOU, too, and I thank God for each and every one of you as such so, so very special and precious white women in my very life and in my very, very heart because YOU and other marvelous white women are my very, very heart!!!!!! 🙂 <3
My friend, the title of your very stupendous blog post article is just perfect, absolutely perfect, and very fitting and applicable to the great themes and topics of this very masterful composition in the written word blog post article, Patricia. The picture which you've very graciously and generously featured and included with this very fine and excellent blog post article is just perfect here, picture perfect, perfectly accompanying your very fun-filled, fantastically chock full of such great and good humor writing here. I just LOVE your very magnificent conclusion here with this powerful self-reflection here perfectly matching the very remarkable title to this sagaciously crafted article here and, in fact, I just LOVE all of this astounding blog post article in all of its great entirety, Patricia!!!!!! 🙂 <3 WOW, Patricia YOU are one very talented and gifted writer, sistah and friend of mine, and each and every one of us being just so blessed and graced by YOU and the sheer brilliance of your very composition!!!!!! 🙂 <3
Sisterfriend, you are one wise woman, such a good woman of God, a good woman of such faith and spirit and Spirit, Patricia, and I'm as usual as always once again For Always very much emboldened, encouraged, uplifted, and inspired by YOU, sister, and your as usual as always once again riveting blog post articles, other writings and books with such creative brilliance all written with the such the very stroke of genius, and with all you do, so very well in such an excellent and fine fashion in a diligently conscientious manner doing your absolutely very best!!!!! 🙂 <3 WOW, Patricia, WOW!!!!! YAY!!!!! YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!! 🙂 <3 Sistah, WOW, now I've such greatly added cheer being even more cheerful and bright having joyfully read your awesome blog post article here being so inspired in joyously responding with my very heartfelt, detailed, and thorough thoughts, ideas, and comments!!!!!! 🙂 <3 And this all is just such very great fun for me, too, Patricia!!!!! 🙂 <3 YOU, Patricia, and your words which you so beautifully intuit are like sunshine in my very life, and in my very life, heart, and spirit, my sister and friend, full of such radiance!!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Sistah, I so, so very much love and cherish YOU, Patricia, and I thank-YOU and God continually for YOU and FOR YOUR VERY PRESENCE in my life!!!!! YAY for YOU, Patricia!!!!! YAY for our very friendship and sisterhood, Patricia!!!!! WOW!!!!! YAY!!!! YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!! Now I'm even more renewed, re-energized, rejuvenated, and reinvigorated to carry on in being wanting, willing, and able to continue suiting up and showing up for duty in resisting, interrupting, and persisting never ever losing heart, never ever losing spirit, and in never ever losing Spirit!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Sistah, YOU are my life and eternal blessing just as I know know somehow that you are for very, very many other folks who along with me so, so very much love and cherish you as I, as we, know that you love and cherish us all, too, Patricia!!!!! 🙂 <3 My friend please have such a wondrously wonderful Wednesday, a wondrously wonderful weekend ahead, and may all of your very days be so, so very especially blessed, Patricia!!!!! 🙂 <3 Spirit so, so very much loves and cherishes YOU, Patricia, and so do I A WHOLE BUNCH!!!!!!! 🙂 <3 Patricia, YOU are just the very greatest and the best, and such the very, very epitome of such very overall awesomeness!!!!! 🙂 <3 WOW!!!!! YAY!!!!!! YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!! I thank-YOU for being the wonderful YOU who you are, Patricia!!!!!!! 🙂 <3
Very Warmly and Sincerely For Always, my so, so very For Always awesomely special and dearly precious soul sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman who you're For Always so, so very much, Patricia, with MY and Spirit's Very Peace and Love FOR YOU FOR ALWAYS, sister of mine, and with Such Blessings and Such Very Even More Blessings FOR YOU FOR ALWAYS, friend of mine, 🙂 <3
Yours FOR ALWAYS soul sisterfriend Christian black woman and FOR ALWAYS in the very great spirit of unity and solidarity, Sherry Gordon in Iowa City, Iowa 🙂 <3
You get to the point! And you are humble. Thanks!