true

The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and real justice.

~Malcolm X

intersectionality, of a sort

I am watching the fog recede and thinking about getting myself together to walk over to the Alemany farmers market, which now features a pedestrian-only expanse between the two rows of booths, instead of two narrow strips of sidewalk separated by a parking lot. I never understood why they didn't ban cars from the booth area and I hope they keep doing it permanently. 

Anyway, that's one silver lining (or thread?) to this plague we're having. 

I've been thinking about a conversation I had yesterday with a 50-something black (or Black, or African American) man who walked past as I was pruning out front. I said hello as he passed by -- I always say hi to anyone who isn't actively avoiding eye contact or busy talking to someone else -- and he responded with a "good afternoon, ma'am" and then, after passing me by, he turned around and said, "Ma'am . . . ." I braced myself, thinking he was either going to hit on me or ask me for money, or both. (I am approached in these ways with some regularity.) I was wondering if I had easily accessible cash I could give him. But he started asking me if I knew that a famous welter-weight boxer had lived in my house a few years ago. I said, "Oh, you mean Paris? Yes, he sometimes stays a few doors down." The man nodded enthusiastically, and started telling me that he too is a professional boxer, that he competed in the Olympics, that he is thinking about coming out of retirement, that his manager is pitching him a fight that would make him a lot of money. 

I felt relieved that he probably wasn't going to hit on me or ask for money -- and guilty about thinking that he might do either. Then I started thinking, Oh, he has to be delusional, he's at least 50 years old. And he clearly doesn't know about Paris's bike accident, because he's telling me that Paris has also thought about coming out of retirement. Should I tell him? No, he's in an alternate universe -- and he doesn't even know Paris. Also: He isn't wearing a mask, and neither am I (my mask was hanging around my neck, and I hadn't thought to pull it up). 

I didn't want to put the mask in place -- truth be told, I was worried that he'd take it as racist (this is white-person silliness, I know! but I think about this sort of thing on the regular, especially when I'm walking around the neighborhood). He wasn't standing super close and we weren't standing in a crowded bar or anything like that. But he was talking loudly. So I climbed a couple of my front steps and started cutting away at a rosemary bush. He kept on about the rigors of training and the emotional pay-off of fighting in front of a cheering crowd, and I occasionally said something about getting hit too often in the head or about how it must be hard to give up that life. Eventually, he kinda ran out of things to say and bid me a good evening. 

not in a personal way

I think about the death of the human race. The long strange trip of the naked ape. Not to be light on it, but everybody’s life is so transient. Every human being, no matter how strong or mighty, is frail when it comes to death. I think about it in general terms, not in a personal way.

-Bob Dylan