Those Damned Brown People!

I have to share this story because the common slander the Lefty blogs hurls against the Right is somehow that we don't like "brown" people. Frankly, a rather offensive term they use there.

Anyway, I get lost in a DC suburb yesterday and need directions. I pull into a shopping mall and see this lady (white) walking to her car, I'm in mind. I'm inside the vehicle, so I power the passenger side window down and say, excuse me, I'm lost. Can you tell me how to get to so and so.

Well, she barely paused, looking at me with this almost disdainful look. As though I was ruining her day.  "Well, you want to get to so and so the best way you can". ANd on she goes with really no help, or desire to help at all.

I whip around into a 7-11 and there's a "brown" fellow with terrible English due his accent at the register. And right behind me is this jet black fellow from, most likely, some part of Africa, with an even worse accent.

Point being, both guys knew just how I had to go but had different opinions and I could hardly make out a word either of them was saying. We must have spent five minutes, the three of us standing there. The "brown" guy behind the register gets to where he's laughing almost in tears at the black guy, who he can't understand either, but who is so determined to help me, he isn't stopping to take  breath - pointing with his hands, I could make out, "You go there! You go there."

Eventually, the brown guy and I are both in tears laughing, neither of us able to understand the black guy, both interjecting directions over one another in a near frenzy by now. And I'm literally LMAO, because neither of us understood the others but were all determined to accomplish one goal - getting me to where I needed to be.

It took five minutes before I left, made two quick turns based on their mutual directions, ultimately, ending up back home in no time flat. I don't think I ever felt more grateful to two people for so sincerely wanting to do everything they could to help out a fellow traveler. Heck, I was the only American there in a DC suburb and the only one that was lost.

Great guys, both. Anyway, don't tell me I don't like brown or black people. I wouldn't trade those two guys in for that uptight upper-middle-class white woman who couldn't be bothered to give me the time of day for all the money in the world. People are just that, people. And I always take them as they come, regardless of skin color, country of origin, or native language, even if I just don't get how they talk.

Genuine communication can go much deeper than that, believe me.

Comments

[Ran]

"I pull into a shopping mall and see this lady (white) walking to her car,"

Would that be a "typical white" lady who thought you were "foreign"?

Or was it your existential conservative misogyny she understood immediately?

[expat]

Ran,

You just don't get it. I've had my share of trying to talk with my hands and feet in various European countries. Encountering great people willing to help you out and send you off with a smile is a fantastic experience.

[BlogDog]

Best video of directions EVAR - Larry Williams, Bam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCXE9ZJb-RI

[smitty]

GPS

[Person of little or no color]

This skin color thing is getting out of hand. Notice how Lucia Whelan, the 911 caller in Gatesgate, had to protest that she wasn't white, God forbid, but olive-skinned. And what would have been wrong if she had described the two men as black? Nothing

Gate's whole dna scam that found out he is 57% white is another race hustle. Look in the mirror and that will tell you your origins without paying hundreds of dollars.

[Mike2Cents]

"Heck, I was the only American there in a DC suburb and the only one that was lost."
What makes you certain you were the only American?
My mom, a U.S. citizen for 40+ years, still has a pretty think brogue.
I'm just sayin'....

[Mike2Cents]

p.s. my nitpicking above aside, the gist of your post is a welcome break from all the noise..

[Bob]

That's a cute story, Dan, and just to be clear, nobody (at least not me) ever thought that you were personally a racist. One thing you left unclear, though, is whether the white lady was a Democrat or Republican. I suspect that she may well have been a Republican whose life was plunged into bitterness because of the Democrats' refusal to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That's a joke son, A JOKE!

Also, to be clear, if you were lost in my city, I'd make a sincere effort to give you directions. But then if you knew who I was you'd be so suspicious that you'd go in the opposite direction and end up down by the landfill where the seagulls and plastic bags and fruit flies swirl in the breeze, and you might contract a mild case of hepatitis. And then you'd blame the "liberal establishment" for your predicament. Again, just a JOKE, although it just happens to be a perfect parable for the current battle over healthcare reform. Sorry, I guess I can't help myself.

[mark l.]

"My mom, a U.S. citizen for 40+ years, still has a pretty think brogue.
I'm just sayin'...."

i dated an au pair from denmark.

she was named "Rikke", but wanted me to call her "Ricky". Her reasoning was that she hated to hear her name 'butchered', and the larger concept of americans who tried to speak her language, but had hopeless accents, was ingratiating to her.

I love to hear pigeon english, the more broken, the better...

it is the source of great pride in this country that we accept the diversity of individuals, and everytime I hear our language get 'butchered', I think to myself, here is somebody who is trying to belong. it is beautiful, and provides a stark contrast to the 'parochial' nature of Europeans, who some would offer up as our 'betters'.

when in france, I don't even attempt their language, as the most common rxn is resentment. no wonder french is a dying language.

[Mercian]

The matter of being a decent person (or a jerk) knows no racial or ethnic boundaries.

[Mercian]

"Gate's whole dna scam that found out he is 57% white is another race hustle. Look in the mirror and that will tell you your origins without paying hundreds of dollars"

I'll disagree with that. I think DNA research isn't a scam but gives a better view of the past.

[ClassicFilm]

Teen WASP boys mumble, often accomplishing this feat without a single flutter of their lips... just as difficult for me to decipher as pigeon English. And the one who's the most difficult for me to understand the most frequently is the one to whom I gave birth 16 years ago. Go figure.

Really enjoyed your story, Dan - it gave me a nice glowy, warm feeling (or, did Al Gore suddenly walk into the room?)

[STyken]

Hill billy d00dz,

It's pidgin not pigeon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin

[mark l.]

thanx fer de ejukatshun...

[ice9]

Oh, wow. Didn't know you were still allowed to trade black dudes for white women. If they aren't American, anyhow.

ice9

[A. Wyatt Mann]

"...MUP DA DOO DIDDA PO MO GUB BIDDA BE DAT TUM MUHFUGEN BIX NOOD COF BIN DUB HO MUHFUGGA..."

[Cthulhu]

ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

[Arno]

You were "literally" laughing your ass off. You laughed so hard it caused your ass to fall off. You now have no ass because "literally," it fell off.

If you can't be bothered to learn English, please go to Jamaica or Russia or somewhere.

[Bubba McHick]

Speaking of bad English:

"I whip around into a 7-11 and there's a "brown" fellow with terrible English due his accent at the register."

Why was his accent at the register?

[Bork Bork]

"Heck, I was the only American there in a DC suburb and the only one that was lost."

I'm confused. Were you the only American because you were white or because English was your first language? Or are you assuming that the two direction givers aren't American because of their race?

[Grover Gardner]

Great story, Dan.

[Wonk Hussein]

Psst...people who feel the need to prove to strangers on the internet that they're not racist, probably have a guilty conscience.

[Willem van Oranje]

"Heck, I was the only American there in a DC suburb"

Really? The "coloureds" there weren't "real Americans"? Is that what this story was about?

[North Dallas Thirty]

Actually, the story was about liberals finding racism where none exists, Willem, but thank you for confirming that main point.

Meanwhile, I leave you with something deemed "not racist" by Barack Obama and global liberals everywhere, yourself included.

"White and Kinney both testified Kilpatrick used the F-word in describing them while urging his security detail to get them off the porch. They said the mayor also made racial remarks about her and White.

"You're a black woman,'' Kinney quoted the mayor as telling her. ``You should be ashamed of yourself being with a man with the last name white. You should not be a part of this."

White is white. Kinney and Kilpatrick are black. "He was very, very angry,'' Kinney told the court."

http://www.wwj.com/pages/2788316.php?

Remember, endorsed and supported by Barack Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZNvC_-RW2Q

[Rufus]

So, you followed directions given to you by people who weren't white. And that means you aren't a racist.

You might want to do a Colbert and get your photo taken with a "black friend" next.

[Ang]

Yeah, because women have NO reason to not walk right up to a car and be helpful if a guy slowly idles up beside them asking for directions.

A friend of mine had a van slowly pull up to her and the driver ask her for directions once, tried to get her to come over closer. When she wouldn't, he pointed a gun at her head and told her to get into the van.

She ran like hell instead. Women are told to not pick up male hitchhikers for along those reasons, and women who hitchhike are told not to accept rides for males along those reasons, but hey, if we don't jump on over to give a ride or give directions to some dude we don't know in a car who doesn't want to bother stepping out of it, it's CERTAINLY because we're stuck up bints. Because we're all psychic, and should totally know when a guy isn't a threat, even if he's acting like a scenario we've been warned about.

[Dan Riehl]

Oh, puhlease Ang. In broad daylight right in front of a major store with me behind the wheel, powering down the window on the passenger side and she on the walk in front of the store. Yeah, I bet she felt threatened for her life at that. No, she was just rude. In fact, I wouldn't have done it were she on the driver's side of my car because I can understand how some might feel threatened. I'm actually always sensitive to that issue if I have to ask directions.

[InfamousQBert]

yup, because having a positive encounter with two POC (people of color) totally means you don't have any engrained ideas about they might be like in a different situation, or about their inherent worth as people.

one thing i think people do wrongly when discussing race is using "racism" as brush to paint a whole person. every one of us has problems in the way we deal with/view the rest of the world. you don't have to be a racist, i.e. cross-burning n-word using white supremacist, to have racist ideas or make racist assumptions. those of us on the progressive side of politics are trying to point out that, just because a person isn't a raving lunatic, doesn't mean that they're completely without prejudices. i'm including myself in this, as well. this discussion is needed to make people more aware of the prejudices they can't see because SO many people have them that we don't even notice it anymore. it's not about demanding that we all be perfect. it's about expecting us all to admit to our imperfections and try to correct them.

[InfamousQBert]

Oh, puhlease Ang.

and, while i'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, i'll assume you've been a woman for an extended period of time and so know exactly what it's like to constantly live in fear that the random guy in the elevator sees your body as public property. or to know that, should something really horrible happen to you, there's an excellent chance you'll be blamed for wearing the wrong clothes, walking in the wrong part of town, or any other number of things that don't make you a person worthy of assault.

i'll never know what it's like to be a kind man who is looked at in fear due to other horrible men and their actions. so please don't assume you know what it's like to be a woman who can't read a man's mind and so has to protect herself by making a horrible assumption about every man she encounters. it sucks, but that's the world we live in, and dismissing our complaints is not a good way to change that.

[InfamousQBert]

html fail in my previous comment. i meant for the first line to be a quote from dan's comment above.

[sue]

You're kidding, right?

You can't see the overt racism in this post and I'm supposed to believe you 'see people as people.' Now I'm LMAO.

[sue]

I don't know what "with me behind the wheel" is supposed to mean. You are... white? Therefore non-threatening. That can't be it, no! Because you just told me you didn't have racist tendencies. Could you clarify that sentence please?

Good thing that no one ever gets assaulted in public places during the day. Oh wait. That's not true either.

Definitely keep talking. You are proving the exact opposite of what you think you are proving. It's fascinating. And scary how unaware you are.

[Patrick Bateman]

I'm not a racist. I once asked directions from a brown fella and a jet black fella. At the same time. After a white woman didn't want to have anything to do with my advances.

[Kristen from MA]

Did it occur to you that pulling up behind this woman may have freaked her out? You know, you being a man she doesn't know, in a parking lot (where rapes have been known to occur)? That maybe she was just trying to get away from you for that reason? Nope, better to just call her a bitch.

(I'm not even going to address the racial stuff.)

[North Dallas Thirty]

Definitely keep talking. You are proving the exact opposite of what you think you are proving. It's fascinating. And scary how unaware you are.

Sue, the hilarious part is that you attack Riehl while endorsing and supporting this kind of behavior.

"White and Kinney both testified Kilpatrick used the F-word in describing them while urging his security detail to get them off the porch. They said the mayor also made racial remarks about her and White.

"You're a black woman,'' Kinney quoted the mayor as telling her. ``You should be ashamed of yourself being with a man with the last name white. You should not be a part of this."

White is white. Kinney and Kilpatrick are black. "He was very, very angry,'' Kinney told the court."

http://www.wwj.com/pages/2788316.php?

Remember, endorsed and supported by Barack Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZNvC_-RW2Q

In short, Sue is yelling at Dan Riehl about what she thinks is his racist attitude while totally ignoring her own party and liberalism's endorsement of someone who says a black woman should be "ashamed" to investigate black criminals and to ride in a car with a white man.

But that's because people like Sue equate racism, not with behavior, but with political affiliation. That's why Robert Byrd, a KKK member, is not a racist, but Michael Steele, a black man, is.

[sue]

Dear North Dallas Thirty,

You are incorrect. I am addressing a specific thing Dan said that is, in fact, racist. You are somehow illogically drawing a connection between something Dan said that I called out and something "my party" did or said.

Since I haven't actually commented on the White/Kinney situation you have no idea what I think of that. I merely pointed out that Dan tried to defend his not being racist by writing a racist post. Oh, the irony.

Thanks,

Sue

[E. Weiskott]

Just want you to know, this is the single most disturbing blog post I have read in a year. I agree with sue, I cannot believe you are comfortable saying and thinking these things; that you celebrate this little episode, even, as "sticking it to those liberal commies" and PROVING you ain't no durn racist.

Some edumucation: Racism is a structural phenomenon, not a personal preference. The witchhunt for racism carried out by the Left and defended against so avidly by the Right is one big sham. As InfamousQBert points out, we all have issues with race. But what conservamatives consistently (and, it strikes me, sometimes intentionally) misunderstand, is that racism always involves power. 'Racism' is not equivalent to 'involving race in any way.' And conversely, 'not mentioning race' doesn't clear a comment or action from the charge of aiding racist power redistribution. THIS is why it is problematic from the point of view of race for, e.g., Cambridge police to arrest Gates in his own home, and not problematic in that way if he were white (but quite possibly problematic in others).

Racism is an objective fact of life for everybody--it's a mode of oppression, and you're either on the giving or the receiving side. Statements and actions either further or counter the power redistribution inherent in a racist society like ours. This blog post, for example, reinstalls hurtful myths about people of color.

http://tr.im/ybot

[jr565]

Kristen wrote:
Did it occur to you that pulling up behind this woman may have freaked her out? You know, you being a man she doesn't know, in a parking lot (where rapes have been known to occur)? That maybe she was just trying to get away from you for that reason? Nope, better to just call her a bitch.

It's kind of funny to get angry about dan assuming the woman is a bitch based on his assumptions of her actions, while then describing the woman's assumption of his actions. if she can view his simply drinving up next to her and politely asking for directions as a sign of him being a potential rapist, then surely Dan might at the same time view her snootiness as a sign that she's a bitch?

[jr565]

Sue please describe the racism in detail so that we can determine that you are in fact correct in your assumption or simply playing making blanket charges of racism based on your own ideological prism, kind of like Gates did.
Be VERY precise.

[Paul Zummo]

I love all these leftist trolls chiming in. I wonder how many actually bothered to read the post, and how many just decided to chime in because some idiot blogger said, "OMG - the DAN is the racist." For the love of humanity, think for yourselves for once you blind, blithering idiots.

[Dan Riehl]

You people are nucking futz. And by "you people," I meant liberals, not necessarily any one color, or race. But, if you're black and forgot to register at the door, please don't steal anything from the sidebar when you go.

Thanks!

[North Dallas Thirty]

"You are incorrect. I am addressing a specific thing Dan said that is, in fact, racist. You are somehow illogically drawing a connection between something Dan said that I called out and something "my party" did or said."

Actually, Sue, what I am doing is demonstrating how the definition of "racist" to liberals like yourself oddly enough covers Dan's asking for directions, but does not include shaming and humiliating a black female police officer for daring to investigate criminal behavior by a black man and for the capital sin of riding in the car with a white man.

I would also like to point out how racists like yourself, Sue, use the accusation of racism to cover up criminal and thuggish behavior on your own parts.

"According to Barker's mother, Kelli, her son was taken to a hospital with cuts and with injuries to his eyes and ears after the assault. His right eye had blood clots, she said.

Parents of the Jena Six say they heard Barker was hurling racial epithets, but Barker's parents insist he did nothing to provoke the beating......

At the hearing, attorneys representing the five men read a statement expressing sympathy to the Barkers and acknowledging that Justin Barker did not use a racial slur."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/26/louisiana.jena.6/

In short, liberals like yourself not only have a hypocritical definition of racism, you have shown yourself willing to lie and state that other people are racists to rationalize your hateful behavior towards them.

Like your friend Henry Gates and your Barack Obama.

[North Dallas Thirty]

"Some edumucation: Racism is a structural phenomenon, not a personal preference."

What a neat way of removing a person's actions from consideration and being able to blame their being part of a particular organization or group instead.

In other words, Riehl's actions mean nothing; I can accuse him of racism because he's a white male.

[Samy Joseph McBride Warner Guildenstern]

Hey Zummo, you're right. LIEBERALS (ROTFL) need to think for themselves. We can't all be "dittoheads" gleefully repeating what some fat, drug-addicted gasbag says.

[Rose]

To be honest, as a young woman, it would disturb me to be accosted by a man in a vehicle while walking to my car alone in a parking lot. It doesn't excuse her rudeness, but enough women read enough chain letters about serial killers asking for directions, pretending to be disabled, etc., in order to lure women into their cars to be wary of anyone. Not to place any blame on you, but maybe in the future you'd get a better reception if you'd ask first in a gas station, etc., rather than asking a lone woman or a woman with children. Just a suggestion.

[DW]

Ah, Dan, proving to me just what you are. You seem comfortable in your skin, so just live with the fact that you are YOU, man. You and North Dallas Thirty can just go off in a nice little corner together and talk about what great white dudez you are and how women and coloreds are just don't get it. Your very direct "just don't steal anything from the sidebar" pretty much sums it up with a nice red, white and blue bow, doesn't it?

And you have disdain for upper class women who just might not need to give you the time of day or directions. Awwwww. Poor Dan!

[Dan Riehl]

"Acosted" Ah, I see. Well, we should stop allowing us men folk to drive through parking lots, I guess.

Like I said, nucking futz. LOL

[Mike2Cents]

Dan attempted to post something that spoke to the fact that outside of punditry, blog ranting, university studies, polls, etc. - we all often get on quite well and repectfully here, in spite of ethnic differences, etc. He felt some positive affirmation from his encounter with a couple of other folks (and quite potentially, fellow US Citizens) and wanted to share that.
The slip here is when he assumes and writes he's the only American. It's a bad slip.
I don't think he was thinking too hard about that detail when he wrote it, and had he been more thoughtful and done a re-read before posting he might have caught and removed that line.
In the end though it's there and there's no explaining it away.
He thought to himself - and shared that thought with others - that heavily accented people of color are probably not Americans. It's not an intrinsically evil or racist assumption - but it's a wrong one. I think DR could do well to not get too defensive here and instead consider accepting in hindsight that this was a bad sentence. Should anyone ever assume that a heavily accented person of color is not American?
Everyone knows the right answer, including DR.
(Even ND30, despite the free association rants against all things Obama.)

[Mercian]

But what conservamatives consistently (and, it strikes me, sometimes intentionally) misunderstand, is that racism always involves power. 'Racism' is not equivalent to 'involving race in any way.' And conversely, 'not mentioning race' doesn't clear a comment or action from the charge of aiding racist power redistribution. THIS is why it is problematic from the point of view of race for, e.g., Cambridge police to arrest Gates in his own home, and not problematic in that way if he were white (but quite possibly problematic in others).

babble babble babble.....
So I guess you are saying if a black officer were arresting a white professor it was racist. Remember Cambridge mayor is black, MA governor is black, US prez is black, seems like a pretty strong power base to me.

[Dhalgren]

“Anyway, don’t tell me I don’t like brown or black people. I wouldn’t trade those two guys in for that uptight upper-middle-class white woman who couldn’t be bothered to give me the time of day for all the money in the world.”

Trading brown people for money, which only strengthens Dan's point that he's not a racist.

I'm sure he has a lot of friends who are Jewish as well.