In spite of the rain forecast, I decided to run without rain gear. That turned out to be a mistake.
I’m training for a half marathon and my schedule had me run 45 minutes to 1 hour today. About 40 minutes into it, it started to pour. I kept running. By the time I had finished what was on my schedule I was drenched, and freezing. I was still 3 miles from home.
So I called an Uber.
(Before you get on me for that...I have met many Uber drivers that are using it to support their small business dreams. One immigrant was developing a catering company and needed to drive on the side to make that happen. So I don’t agree with the boycott.)
I get in the car with a brown skinned man, who asked me if I had not anticipated the rain. I said, no, I did not, and ran in it and now was too cold to walk home. He said, “Oh, you were running. You need to stay healthy.”
Then he asked me if I grew up in San Francisco. I said no. He said, “like everyone else I talk to”, a bit peeved. I said, “I think that means you grew up here.” He said yes, and started to complain about gentrification, which is not unusual if you actually talk to your drivers here.
I told him I was from Wisconsin. He told me that when he thinks of Wisconsin, he thinks of cheese, Packers, cold, snow. Then he said, “boring.” Then he said, “white people.” I said that was all correct, except that there were actually Black people, Milwaukee was just horrifically segregated (he was surprised by this) and this was part of the reason why it wasn’t some place I wanted to be.
He then started talking about how PoC were excluded even in San Francisco and told me a story I didn’t know about Willie Mays being excluded from one of the rich neighborhoods here because he was Black. I said that that kind of exclusion was unacceptable and not embracing diversity was bad for everyone. I told him that I worked for Planned Parenthood. He said, “well, you guys are going through some shit.”
That was seemingly all it took to open the floodgates of rage. He told me, “I’m not Christian — or Muslim — but there is a Proverb that says that ‘ill gotten gains will not stand.’ They built the White House with Black slave labor. Who calls something the White House?! Who names their house after colors? They did it because it was for white people. They throw Blacks and Browns in jails. They torture. They’re still doing it. ...They say that [revolution] should be peaceful, but it won’t be. It will be bloody. Really bloody.”
We were at my house then. He turns to me and smiles, “Stay healthy.” I am unsure whether it was a mild threat or a nicety. But then I accidentally closed the door on the seatbelt and had to open it again to fix it. He said, “sorry” and reached for it. I thought, “what are you apologizing for?”
I am tearful but don’t let him see it because I am afraid he will think I am crying out of fear for myself or white people. But I wasn’t. I was crying for humanity in general, and still can’t totally pull it back, two hours later. I was glad I was sopping wet so he couldn’t see any real tears. I feel honored that he felt like he could say these things to me, but at the same time sitting with the rage of someone who has been wronged by people that look like me was very hard. And yet I think it is something we all need to do.
Thing is, I had just told a friend yesterday I believed we were headed for Civil War. He thought I was being silly.
