Yesterday I drove the whitest man I knew, white as in blonde, wrote his doctoral thesis on queer social services within Canadian indigenous tribes, and generally excelled at whiteness, around a
poor black neighborhood so he could work on his "client-facing skills", and every time he spoke I wanted to howl with laughter.
Middle-aged black woman: "Got a cigarette?"
Me: "Not today, but if you get a pack I can hold onto it so you don't smoke it all at once."
Whitey: "You know there's a Sobriety app you can download to work on your
addiction."
Whitey: "Women, i.e. people who have periods, apparently go thru a lot of
tampons. So when I discovered they gave them away for free at the food pantry, and people really wanted them, it occurred to me that we should just, you know, give away a lot of them."
Whitey: "People get so intimidated when they find out I have a PhD (in
social services), it's so annoying...anyway, where's our first stop?"
Me: "I got a client living in a traphouse."
Whitey: "What's a
traphouse?"
Whitey: "Is that (old black man) your friend?"
Me: "No."
Whitey: "But you called him Honey."
Me: "I call everyone Honey. Or Sweetie. Or My Love. We're in
the south."
Whitey: "Can you *do* that?"
Whitey: (in a loud carrying voice outdoors) "Wow there's a lot of busted up houses on this street."