I want to ask you a couple of questions, seriously, about racism.
There's a certain convenience store on MLK in south St. Pete, maybe 10 blocks from the Seaside Shack, where I hesitate to go on weekend nights.
It's a WhateverMart, the kind of place that stocks beer, cigarettes, iced tea, sunflower seeds, scratch-off lottery tickets, pork cracklins, cheap champagne, or whatever the hell else I decide I need on a bored whim. It's not the closest one to my apartment, but it's the closest that's open after 10:30 or so.
(Plus, the closest one is usually staffed by a surly, self-consciously disinterested young man who consistently gouges me on stuff like cartons of smokes and cases of bottled water, so I don't go there anymore. And I hereby revoke Max The Watchdog's Best of The Bay Award, because he certainly isn't watching out for my best interests, at least in a financial sense.)
When the cravings for a bag of Funyuns or a Vitamin Water and a can of Vienna sausages set in late Saturday night, I tend to "forget" that this particular bodega exists, and drive the extra mile or so to the 7-Eleven just across the bridge on Coquina Key. It's a little more expensive — and more often than not the doors are locked because the floors inside are being cleaned, forcing me to either embark on an odyssey to Pinellas Point or give up and go to sleep hungry.
I do this because the other store and its parking lot are inevitably jammed with African-American men younger than I, many of whom are unnecessarily hard-eyed and going to great lengths to emulate rap stars who claim to have dealt crack and shot other African-American men before becoming pop-culture icons.
I can give you all the usual liberal disclaimers. I can tell you about all of my black friends. Or about how I've lived on the south side of St. Pete on and off for more than a decade, and experienced the riot of '96 firsthand as a resident, and stood in line for grub at the original Red's Snack Shack. Or about my belief that John Rocker is a semi-literate douche bag. Or about how much I love hip-hop, and Marvin Gaye and Lean on Me.
But the bottom line is, my discomfort at being the only white guy in the crowd, there — and I'm talking about a very specific place and time — occasionally borders on fear.
OK, so here's my first question:
Does that make me a racist?
Last Friday night, I was on my way home from Becks' place in Kenwood when I realized I needed cigarettes. I was tired, and that convenience store was on the route home, so I said to myself, "Fuck it," and decided to stop. (That I actually said to myself "Fuck it," and factored in my exhaustion, might give you some idea about the trepidation I sometimes feel about the place.)
The corner lot was, as usual, a panorama of rap-video clichés: beautifully custom-painted and tricked-out cars, thumping bass, dudes hollering uninhibitedly at babes, impromptu bumper-side gatherings. There was barely room for my Jeep on the asphalt.
I entered the store, and was immediately halted by the mass of humanity around the sales counter. I was idly looking around, waiting to tell whichever of the two harried male cashiers became available first what I wanted, when I heard someone to my left comment on my presence.
"Look at 'im. He's fuckin' lost. Yeah, he's definitely looking for someone."
I looked over. A short, handsome guy with a closely buzzed scalp and a couple of gold fronts was giving a small group of friends the play-by-play.
"Who, me?" I asked. "Naw, I'm just waiting on cigarettes."
"Then get in line, man," the guy told me.
So I moved to the other side of the counter, waited my turn, and ordered up my deck of Marlboro Mediums. As I left, the good-looking kid called after me, more quietly than he'd been talking before, but not really quietly at all.
"Hey, man."
"Hey. Man."
"Hey. Man."
I ignored him. I had a pretty good idea what he wanted to talk about.
Back at my Jeep, I doled out a single cigarette to an extremely polite and friendly homeless man, rebuffed his request for change and climbed inside. I cranked the truck's ignition, and turned around to check my maneuvering room. When I turned back, Mr. Handsome Buzz Gold Fronts filled my windshield.
"You need weed?"
I indicated that I didn't.
"You straight?"
(When dealing in substances, asking someone if they're "straight" is asking if they're cool, taken care of, in need of anything in particular. Some bartenders have taken to using the term; he's not asking about your sexual orientation, just whether or not you could use another drink.)
I indicated that I was.
At this point, Mr. Handsome Buzz Gold Fronts — the security guard's buddy — turned back to someone amid the group hanging around the front of the store, and shrugged his shoulders.
"He don't need anything," he said, to someone or everyone.
The overwhelming impression I got was that Mr. Handsome Buzz Gold Fronts — and company — was more than a little surprised to discover I honestly wasn't in the neighborhood looking for a hookup.
Which leads me to my second question:
Does that make him a racist?
Discuss.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2006.
