Scenes from Black History Month 2011

2/23/11: CVS Pharmacy in Prosperous Southern PG County

I run in to pick up a prescription that has been ready for at least three days (I have learned this is the way to make sure I can pick up presription refills before I need them in illustrious PG County). I step up to the empty counter and give my name and birthdate to the pharmacist. She rifles through the prescriptions in the section of my last name as she discusses a co-worker's personal business ALOUD! There are about 6 pharnacists, all Black, all behind the counter, all discussing this woman's business, all loud, and all in front of the customer. Then the exchange:

She: What's your last name?

Me: Bruce. B-R-U...

She walks away before I finish to go search another area, still talking about non-pharmacuetical matters. Once she finds it about 5 minutes later, she yells at me (literally), "Why ain't you tell me it was a big bag?"

Me: (Shaking my head and laughing) "I had no idea." She also did not have a clue.

The Analysis: We really don't understand code-switching. There are just some things we can't do at work. Yes, because we are Black. This exchange was embarrassing and unnecessary. It's no wonder so many people found the Cosby Show unrealistic. How can we be expected to be respectable doctors when we can't be respectable when we're only dressed like doctors?

2/24/11: Lil Ceasar's in Illustrious Central PG County

I go in to pick up an order of Crazy Bread. Three Black young men are in line in front of me. The exchange:

Boy 1: "Where you bout to go, son?"

Boy 2: (Note he looks about 16 years old) "I'm goin to the hospital to see my son." Then he pulls out a flip phone like he had important business to do.

Boy 1: "Okay. My bad...Baby daddy."

Boy 3 looks at his pizza. The manager, who is white, and I, who am not, look at all three of them with the same face.

The Analysis: I guess if he is a teenager in 2011 with a flip phone, he probably does have issues with condoms...(just kidding). Seriously, if this keeps happening there will be no men to raise our boys. There will be boys, creating and copying caricatures of what other generations used to know. Think about it.

Blaring Detail Throughout the Month

Prince George's County's salary differences for the people at the top of the school board (furthest away from contact with the students) and those at the bottom (the teachers...who are in closest contact with the students) are appalling. It's obviously not a non-profit organization for everyone...so I quit this month. Seriously... 

2/24/11: A Bowling Alley (enough said...)

After a young man tells me he was  in a line at a shoe store at 7:00 AM for a pair of $190 shoes (and he shows me a picture of the shoes he couldnt wait to put into his phone), he questions (in a mocking, "you-just-can't-do-what-other-Black-folks-do. Can-you?" tone) where I do my grocery shopping because he sees a receipt from my purse that doesn't say Giant, Safeway, or Shoppers Food Warehouse.

The Analysis: We are always going to have issues with our health if we are more concerned about our choice of shoes than our choice of food sources. We should take a field trip outside our comfort zones. Visit grocery stores in other communities. See what other kinds of fresh foods are out there. Stand in line for that! Pay $190 for that! Take a picture of that for Facebook! Sorry...I'm just sick of the self-imposed limitations.

Final Thoughts: I once gave my class a writing prompt/discussion topic: Do we still need a Black history month? The responses were not surprising. Most said no; most were Black. The truth is I agree with them for many reasons, the most important of which is that the only history that sticks with us is the immediate one. Immediately, we need to get it together. Now, I would never expect perfection in the ideal sense, but perfection in the realistic sense should be a goal. Perfection is really the process of reaching for it, knowing that you will always fall tragically short, but understanding that it's all about the reach and not the grasp. We should do better. Yes, because we're Black. We deserve better because we are capable. We need better so we can begin to write history. President Obama is not our Superman, nor the second coming of MLK, Malcolm X, or Jesus Christ. He isn't "The Dream." He is the reach, and when he's done, we will have no choice but to grow our own arms...a little bit each day in little ways.

Be easy good people...