Sunday, December 21, 2008

Overheard in post-racial America ...

... while doing some last-minute Christmas shopping at a bookstore this evening, a familiar bit of revisionist history from a trio of young (white) women ahead of me on the escalator.

"Oh no, the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery," said one of the very delusional (or willfully ignorant) ladies. Then she caught a glimpse of my disapproving countenance and quickly turned around.

Another woman in the group agreed. "Oh yeah. Absolutely. It was about states' rights."

I wonder if I missed the opportunity for what President-elect Obama might have called "a teachable moment." Then again, if formal education and common sense hadn't made much of a dent on the women, I'm guessing a big, agitated black man probably wouldn't have done anything other than sent them running for security.

Instead, I sighed heavily and headed for the cashier. Knowledge is power, no?

4 comments:

Librachick said...

LMAO imagining what woulda happened if you had said something. I think you made the right decision on that one.

I swear it never ceases to amaze me the level of denial a person is willing to go to in order to not accept and deal with the truth, you know? Amazingly enough, I had a similar encounter many years ago, ALSO in a bookstore, where this woman, the cashier, was trying to convince me that slavery really wasn't as bad as they say it was. (All I was trying to do was buy "Cane River," which had just come out at the time.)
I haven't been back to that particular bookstore since.

blackink said...

Wow. Slavery wasn't that bad, huh? How and why did you engage this person in conversation?

And I bet you probably couldn't get that woman to get something from the storage room in that bookstore without a complaint.

avery said...

yo, b, i could slap people that come in my face w/ that. i be like really. states rights? the right of states to do what, exactly?

blackink said...

@Avery: Dead. On. I have the exact same question for that camp. I might even want to slap them fools, too.