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22_FILLMORE

                                             December 10, 2007



  Riding the 22 Fillmore back from Japantown.

  There's a black girl in the center of the
  back seat, quitely chatting on a cell phone.
  She has very dark skin, and she's showing
  off really nice legs.

  A crowd of black kids (aged 8-10?) get on the bus,
  and begin doing their rowdy act, one of them
  climbing around on the overhead rails, etc.

       They talk to the black girl
       briefly, kidding her with
       some schtick like "no, we
       heard it on the radio, really".

          Maybe she's
          recorded
          some music?


They huddle around the side exit, and one
of them starts pushing it too far, dangling
around outside of the open doors, yelling
up the street.

  The bus driver -- an older, asian guy --
  tells them to knock it off.

  They (almost) immediately quiet down.

  The bus driver then adds "or I'll call the police".

  They start saying "huh?  what did you say?"

They get off the bus at the
next stop, run around behind
the bus, and yank the contacts         Before leaving, they
off the wires, so the bus              rap something in unison:
driver has to walk around back
to put them back on.                     "We're black!
                                          When we get off of this bus,
He climbs back on the bus.                these motherfuckers are
Turns to us, and makes a                  going to say something
pronouncment:                             about us."

  "When you have black people,
   you have problems, when you
   have no black people, then
   you have no problems."


Dangerbaby and I -- sitting
in the back of the bus, as is
not unusual -- immediately
react:

   "Oops!" (scintillating,               A glance around the
   as always).                           bus: there's a mix
                                         of white, asian and
   She says something like               latino at this point,
   "You're driving in the                but no blacks -- the
   wrong city, dude!"                    girl had gotten off
                                         some time before the
                                         little kids.



   At this point, a white guy
   sitting by himself, turns over
   his shoulder, and looks at us,
   but says nothing, and I do          A latino guy in
   believe we've spotted one           the corner also
   of the "silent majority"            reacts in the same
   among racists.                      way at this point.    Difficult to
                                                             say what side
                                                             he's on, but
      Someone up front is saying                             I fear he's
      something like "kids these                             another member.
      days have no sense of --".

      But my take was almost                          DAY_FOR_THE_RACES
      completely opposite: this
      crowd of black kids was
      obnoxious, and misguided in a
      lot of ways, but at least
      they're alive.                         Misguided: defining "black"
                                             as synonymous with "obnoxious".
      White kids these days look to
      me like they're on this                     To my eye, the worst
      downward spiral into some                   thing about their
      autistic video game hell --                 behavior was that one
      they'd never play pranks on                 of the kids abandoned
      the bus driver, and this is                 an ice cream cup on top
      not necessarily such a good                 of the wheel well.
      thing.
                                                   RACE_DOWN

                                          Embrace-thy-stereotype
                                          is not exactly a
                                          formula for success,
                                          is it?





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