Racial Equality in Bed Stuy

So... today I had random racial incident # 1 in front of my beautiful Bedford-Stuyvesant residence. Of course, I was the one who made it racial... least let me explain. While approaching home from my favorite mode of transportation, the B44 bus, I see a hooded man posted up in front of the gate to my apartment. This older black gentleman had propped himself what looked like a very comfortable position by resting his right arm, containing a brown paper bag filled with what I can only imagine was cool-aid, on the top of the fence surrounding the 20 some odd feet of fence that divided our building from the rest.

While walking up to this gentleman, I am greeted by a gruff "Hey Joey!" from this hooded stranger perched on my gate. Since I have never, and will never be a Joey (and may I also add, have never been mistaken for a Joey) I replied "No" quickly went about my business of entering the building. "Do you know Joey?" I hear from the man now behind me. "No" I once again reply and get back to the business of finding the right key.

As if I had picked the wrong thing to say and the wrong person to say it to, I soon hear "well you didn't have to say it like that.. damn man... what's your problem..." To which I can only respond, "I'm not Joey, do I look like joey?"

This heated debate over my knowledge of Joey soon heats up and somehow my whiteness comes into play. As cool as I can and may be, I loose my temper and ask this random character the question that had been so prevalent on my mind, "Is Joey white?" I ask. "Yes" he responds. And now, having been set up for the question I have always wanted to ask, I ask "What!? So because I'm white you think I'm Joey? What do all white people look alike to you?" There, I said it, I did my part to voice the opinion of hundreds of thousands of down trodden white men across America.

On the day that long time white man John Edwards dropped out of the Democratic Presidential race, defeated not on a platform of who is a better candidate, but who garners more attention, the white female candidate or a black male candidate, I suddenly found myself, a white man living in Bed-Stuy on the defense.