As noted when I guest-blogged for Hope, last Wednesday’s meals-and-sharing dinner conversation got a little heated (I’ll link what I wrote when Hope posts it.) At one point I tried (foolishly) to persuade “An Angry Black Man” to treat me like the person he’d known for 2 years instead of lumping me with the rest of the “White Devils” he was railing against. Kevin, another man at the table, decided to come to my defense. “Patricia’s like the cook on the slave ship who’s really nice to you and gives you extra food,” he said.
What? (Or, as I read on Hope’s blog that someone else’s mother said: WTF?)
Hard as it is to admit this, there is a painful truth in Kevin’s metaphor. (Simile, actually) When it comes to today’s systemic racism, I am complicit. Actually, the painful truth gets more horrific: I could have quit my cook job. But how do I get off this present-day ship?