Now THAT's a comeback

Last night, Son #1's band came over for a meeting. They were standing in the court, waiting for everyone to arrive, when our elderly next-door-neighbor started to stare.

Yeah, at the dozen young black men standing in the street with my son.

She pulled Son #1 aside and asked him if he felt SAFE. Which of course he did. "Yeah, sure, this is my GOSPEL band, they're good guys," he said, or something like that.

She told them not to spend too much time running around outside, and not to play late. And then she walked away.

Which is when the drummer turned to her and shouted, "YEAH, I bet you used to OWN one of us!"

Census Weirdness

I went out Enumerating today. I had a few houses in my book on which I have been unable to get information.

A few were obviously vacant, but I am not authorized to make that designation unless someone in the area verifies for me that, yes, that house with the tree growing into the roof is abandoned. Fortunately, on my third trip down that road, I ran into a woman who was able to sort that out for me for all of them at once.

I went back to one I'd visited a while back and caught the man at home. He stood in the doorway--well, kinda hunched in the doorway, as he was too tall to fit under the door frame--and before I could ask him any questions, he said, "I'm not going to give you any names or birth dates or social security numbers or income or anything."

"No problem," I said. "They don't make me ask about social security numbers or income, anyway. But can I ask you a few questions?"

"We don't have any illegal immigrants in here, neither."

"Yeah, really mostly all I need is a number. Can you tell me how many people were living here on April first?"

"Two."

"They want me to ask names and birth dates, but we can skip that since you don't want to say. Can you tell me what race each person is?"

"We're all white. Everyone around here is white."

Well, OK, then.

Since I am also white, well, I had to wonder if he would have said it the same way, and so forcefully, if I were not. But I was not about to ask, because he pretty much looked like he was ready to slug me the whole time.

I also stopped by an odd apartment building in the woods. You would never know it was back there, but I had found them once and gotten some of the information I'm supposed to collect, but not all. I've been back a couple more times with no luck. Today was my last attempt to catch someone willing to talk to me--as per usual, a lot of cars were there but no one was answering their doors.

Leaving the property I turned right, deeper into the woods, instead of left, toward the main road.

I have no sense of direction.

None.

Really.

Just ask anyone.

I realized it almost immediately, but since this was just a long, narrow, gravel road there wasn't much opportunity to turn around. I try to avoid using people's driveways, so I drove to the end, where the street got slightly wider, and turned back toward the main road.

As I passed one of the houses, a man flagged me down. "YOU NEED TO SLOW DOWN!" he said. I was going about 20 mph at the time, which I think is not all that fast for a straight road, even if it is a bit on the narrow side. But, hey, I am paid to count people, not to argue with them, so I said, "Yes, sir."

"You should not even be here," he said.

"Yeah, I know, I got lost so I had to turn around."

"You should not even be on this road and you are driving too fast."

At this I smiled, waved, and started to pull away, and a woman came out of the house, screaming so much her entire face was red. I am not at all sure what she was trying to say to me, but you have to imagine--I was beyond the end of her 100-yard-long driveway, politely excusing myself from her angry husband, and all I could think was, "If you two were not so busy telling me to get away from your house, I would be several miles away by now, but OK..."

I also went to a house I'd almost given up and impossible. Every time I came by, they were gone, or only their young children were there, and yet today I lucked out and caught them all at home. They invited me in.

I'm not supposed to go into people's houses, but sometimes I do, if it makes more sense. Best part of that house? The Race question.

"We're all rednecks. 100 percent, All-American Redneck. You can put THAT on your form."

And he said it with such a charming smile, while changing his baby daughter, I was tempted to write it in. We are expected to write in that sort of stuff, if they want us to. His wife, though, told me, "We're all white. Well, I'm a little Mexican, but that's it, and the kids aren't Mexican enough to count, so we're white."

I'm not about to decide how Mexican you have to be to count as Mexican Enough, so I told her that she could have me check that box for her kids if she wanted. She decided to stick with just white.

They then had a bit of an argument over how many people to include on the form. "The kids move out and they boomerang right back. They turn 18 and you think they're gone and then they come back with more."

My attitude for the whole thing is pretty much just one of gratitude for the job. I don't care what boxes you want me to check. You can identify yourself any way you like. "No skin off my nose," as my mom would say.

I do wonder, though, why we are required to fill out those forms in pencil. Our payroll forms have to be in pen, "for the scanning machines." But the Census data has to be in pencil, also ostensibly for the benefit of the scanning machines.

Well, which is it?

Conspiracy theorists can start riiiiight about there.

At least in my case it is not that hard to guess

Yesterday was my first day of Census training. Mostly it was filling out employment forms, getting fingerprinted (three times, in my case), and starting to go through the practice workbooks that explain all about what Census forms look like.

Not bad, but boy, is it dull.

Also.

You know those "gender and ethnicity" questionnaires everyone asks you to fill out these days? They are completely voluntary, right? Well, at Census training, they are also completely voluntary. However, if you choose not to self-identify, the crew leader/instructor is required to fill out the form for you, based on her observations.

When she explained that, I had to ask.

"You mean, I can fill out the form, if I want. But if I decide that my ethnic background is not the federal government's business, so I decline to fill out the form, they are going to make you guess?"

"Yes."

Ya just gotta love modern life, man.

Why is Santa black?

About a decade ago, Hubby went to the hardware store looking for Christmas stuff. He purchased, among other things, a molded plastic Santa for outside the house.

He called in the car. "There were just a few Caucasian Santas, and a whole bunch of black Santas. I felt bad that no one was buying the black Santas, so that's what I bought." Here he is, with Jake* for scale.


Santa's been a regular part of our holiday decor ever since. Yesterday, I pulled our Christmas boxes out of the attic. Son #1 walked in, saw Santa, and asked, "Why's Santa black? Why am I just noticing this NOW?"

I gave him the whole story.

A few minutes later, son #2 walked in, saw Santa, asked, "Why is Santa black?"

Gave him the story.

Half an hour later, Son #3 walked in, saw Santa, asked, "Why is Santa black?"

Story.

The next morning, Son #4 woke up, walked into the dining room, noticed Santa, and asked, "Why is Santa black?"

Because you go to public school, Son. He was just Santa, until the public schools taught you to be racist.

*I realize Jake should not be walking on the dining room table. He is 14 and hasn't been feeling well. I'm cutting him some slack.

I don't know if I can even blog it

Race-tinged violence at the Sons' school yesterday. Horrible. I am considering blogging about it but, ugh. Maybe when I am not so tired.

Maybe not racism, but racial attitudes?

About 12 years ago, or so, the Sons visited my parents for a few days.
Yeah, that meant my parents had four children under the age of five in their house at the same time. It was, to say the least, an adventure.

Part of that adventure included the police.

Son #1 dialed the police; my parents had it on speed-dial, so he only had to hit one button. The police called the house, and my dad explained that no, they didn't need to come out, it was just his little scamp of a grandson who did not sit still until he was sound asleep (and even then there was no guarantee, dear God that child did not sit still).

A few minutes later, Son #1 did it again.

This time, the police did not call. They showed up. My father explained, again, that they were just a little overwhelmed with the grandkids, and they were sorry for wasting the police's time, and they'd move that phone up to where a 4-year-old couldn't reach it.

And the police said, basically, that's all fine, but we still need to come in and look around.

So, my Dad invited them in. They looked at the house. They looked at my parents. They looked at the 4 wilding children. They confirmed that all was as my father said it was. Because, well, if my Dad had been held at gunpoint he might have said exactly the same thing.

It is the police's job to take seriously any call they get. Someone reports a crime, the police have to investigate. And my parents, as mortified as they were at the time, were also well aware that the police were there to help them out. That their intentions were noble and honorable. That if things were different, my parents would have been beyond grateful for the prompt and thorough attentions of the police.

So when Henry Louis Gates was asked to step out onto his porch, after neighbors reported a break-in at his house (a second break-in, apparently--the police had been there before while Gates was on vacation) and he shouted, "Why, because I'm a Black man in America?"

Well, it makes me think that it was not the police behaving badly, but the citizen jumping to race-based conclusions.

Racism is real. People get judged because of the color of their skin. I'm not saying that is not true. But I just think that in this case the cops were not the racist ones. They were just trying to protect the home owner from repeated crime.

Mixed feelings, oh, yeah, I got 'em

Part of me can understand and even support the "buy Black" movement this couple hopes to launch.

But if I said, "Let's only buy white", would I get that kind of happy coverage? Would I DESERVE that kind of coverage? Of course not. And I say that as someone who once knew just about every white person in the city where I lived (because I was living in Asia at the time)...it never crossed my mind that I should support white businesses just because they were white.

Ya know why? Because that is racist.

Who's that musician?

Son #1 wore this shirt to school today. He's a musician, and a huge fan, just like Hubby.

An African-American classmate saw the shirt and said, "Bob Marley? You don't know anything about black people."

Son #1's response? "I know enough about black people to know this is Jimi Hendrix."