Discriminate

“Hey! Hey, man.”

I guess he’s calling me. So I get back out of my car and see the black man walking towards me in the apartment parking lot.

“Jimbo” he extends his hand.

“Joshua” we shake hands.

“Do you play guitar?”

“A little bit.”

“I don’t mean to sound racist or anything . . .”

I was unaware of the stereotype that black people have that young white males play guitar. John the Baptist at work, who happens to be of a darker skin tone, also assumed that I play guitar. But, maybe it’s not that I’m white, maybe I just look like a guitar player.

I was working next to someone from SAGU the other day. I gave a customer her change, $7.24. I told my coworker, “Her change was the same as my birthday, seven twenty-four!”

A couple of customers later a woman bought a six pack. Her total was $7.24. I told my coworker, “Wow, her beer cost the same as my birthday, seven twenty-four.”

He said something like, “Then you have an evil birthday.” His comment was based on the idea that beer is just plain bad.

We talked for a while and he held firm that he planned to never drink beer. But he said that he would probably have wine at his wedding… and dancing.

There is a stereotype in this subculture that beer drinkers are bad people.

Saturday, I mentioned to someone that I went to “church” that morning. He asked if I was Seventh day Adventist. I’m not.

In the A/G bylaws under “Legalism” they state that you shouldn’t add conditions to salvation, such as resting on the seventh day.

When people find out that I keep Sabbath and don’t eat pork they label me as “legalistic” (well, first they ask me if I’m Jewish) and they usually assume that I’m trying to earn my salvation by works. I'm not trying to earn my salvation. I'm trying to obey God.

Stereotypes and double standards. A/G bylaws state that you shouldn’t press your opinions concerning the seventh day onto others. But they also say that you should tithe the way they want you to tithe.

Why are wine and shrimp okay, but beer is bad?

I wonder if Jimbo is good at basketball. But he was kinda short so he’s probably more of a football player.

weekly

Been workin. John the Baptist tried starting theological debates with me. All the stuff he wants to argue about is so pointless. let's talk about something that has to do with our every day lives.

tonight i'm making dinner for joy and some friends. last week we had the mooy's over. i'm so grown up. ha. if you want me to make you dinner next week, email me, call me, or leave a comment.

Juneteenth

Joy doesn't want me to write about work. But all I've been doing lately is working and hanging out with her. So, with the exception of Joy, I don't have much to write about.

Juneteenth is coming up soon. I hadn't even heard of it until a couple semesters ago in MESA (Multi Ethnic Student Association). It's the celebration of when the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the slaves in Galveston, Texas in 1865, two years late.

Listening.

There's this new guy at work. His name is Jacob. He's just a bagger for now. He is short and has grey curly hair and a moustache. He has a peculiar way of moving. He reminds me of my high school Bible teacher. He also has an accent and reminds me of Robin Williams in "Jacob the Liar". I asked him were he is from and he said Russia. I asked him his last name and he said that it is too long and confusing. But I asked him again and he said it and I was able to repeat it. He was impressed by my name saying skills. He's a cool little man.

Last night, when it was getting close to closing time, the manager turned off the air conditioning. It was deafeningly silent. I noticed that there wasn't music playing like there usually is. I heard the beeps of the registers. Crinkling of bags. Carts rolling. Quiet voices. It felt like the air was thin, not full of all the extra noise. I noticed the people in the store. I wondered for a moment how the world would feel without traffic, tv's, radios, and all the background noise that we filter out of our conscious minds. Maybe we've gotten so used to filtering that we also filter out people. Voices and faces flow in and out and they seem as meaningless to us as blowing air. "Maybe we crash into each other so that we can feel something."

Andy & Crash

The wheelchair guy came into work the other day. He actually called himself the wheelchair guy. When I asked him his name, he said it is Andy. He dropped off one load of groceries, then he went and got a few more things and came back. Alice helped at the very beginning, but then she left me to help him by myself. I think she's starting to trust me. I am getting better at my job. Andy is really a kind and funny guy. He asked me about school and life. He was the best customer I've had in a while. I hung his bags on the handles of his chair. I got to slide the pen between his stubby fingers so that he could sign the receipt for his credit card. I look forward to seeing him again.

Last night I saw "Crash." Sandra Bullock has a small role in it. She plays a snobby rich person (kind of like a lot of the women who shop at Central Market). I went by myself. It was the first rated R movie I've seen in a long time. And it was definitely rated R. I enjoyed the movie though. It was what I expected. It's a movie about racism. I saw it at a theater that is usually full of black people, but I think that all five of us watching Crash were white. A day in L.A. There's no big plot. It's a bunch of small intersecting stories. We follow people of various skin tones and nations of origin as they interact with people of different races. There's no good guy or bad guy. Everyone's a little good and a little bad. Prejudices are justified and ripped down. Before I saw the movie I expected it to be (for those of you from SAGU) a "Paul Alexander movie" and I still think it is. And it's such an intense movie. I'm still shaking. Seeing "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" tonight will be a welcome change of pace.