How Racism Broke the Ice

Who would have thought good old fashioned racism could break the first date ice?

I'm thinking Cupid has finally decided to be good to me. I'm on a promising first date with an intelligent, attractive sports psychologist who happens to be of African American descent (I specify this only because it is important in the context of this story). We have a lovely lunch and decide to walk Lake Merritt.

As we begin walking toward the lake, a dishevelled man begins to keep pace alongside us. There's a quick exchange between him and my date (I didn't catch it in the moment, but later learned that he asked my date for money, and the psychologist politely declined). The man begins to mumble under his breath. We continue walking and conversing, paying little attention to this somewhat common occurence in the city life.

My ears perk when the first clear statement I decode from the man is "white bitch." Being as there are no other people in a 2 mile radious, I determine that he is referring to me. Then I hear him address my date with "Go ahead ni**a, marry this white bitch....modern day slavery, ni**a," and other more sexually explicit comments (I'll spare your virginous ears here). We continue to try to employ our behavioral strategy of ignoring the man and continuing our conversation, but at some point his comments become so vulgar that all we can do is continue to walk in silence, hoping he goes away.

He eventually floats across the street, and the psychologist and I are left to sit in our silence. If this isn't going to break the ice, I'm not sure what will...After some brief decompressing we continue on with our date, and eventually we even make light of the situation. I make a debatably more awkward comment: "We should ask him to officiate the wedding..."

*crickets, crickets*

and the psychologist jokingly names the man Ricky the Racist.

In the end I feel like saying Thank you, dishevelled man. It's not like I wanted to know his favorite music or color- let's just cut to the important stuff. I mean, if we weren't gonna talk racism on the first date, it sure as hell wouldn't have come up any time in our future...

This is the story of how racism broke the first date ice. Or technically, how Ricky the Racist did. Whew! So glad it's out of the way.

Thanks, Ricky!