Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, July 01, 2006
The sound of freedom?
On Wednesday night, I came upon a group of two (2) white women, four (4) white men, and one (1) black man (possibly from Sudan or East Africia). The whites were all locals as I have seen before when I am out selling the Party newspaper.One woman was urging her male companions to confront the black man over asking her for sex. I have no idea whether this allegation is true because I missed the original incident.One white man said to the black man that the woman was “... not a working girl. So you should not ask her for sex."The black man made no reply. He was on his cell phone. He had placed himself against a shop window. I think he was expecting to be attacked. There were three (3) escape routes available to him. One was blocked by the above group. One was where I was walking. The other was through the darkness of the grounds of a church.As I got closer, I thought that, in a similar situation, I would just apologise and leave rapidly. However, I thought that it was unreasonable for a black person to apologise to a white person for something that they did not do.I thought about approaching the black man to offer my support, but I realised that I would be just another white man coming out of the darkness into a tense racial situation. I really could not think of anything sensible to say in this circumstance.I then came upon the group of whites. The second woman was saying that the first woman “... should let it go.” The three (3) other white men had not moved since I came upon the scene.At this point, I could have stopped and spoken to the group, but then other people would have stopped or approached to see what was going on. The last thing I wanted to do was to have a crowd build up. Things could become very nasty very quickly. Allegations of violation of a white woman’s chastity could have caused a riot.I could not smell any alcohol. The tension seemed to be lessening.Anyway, I kept on walking. I considered calling the police but they would have pointed out that no crime had been committed yet and the black man may have been arrested as a possible illegal immigrant.I went onto the supermarket to do my shopping and returned to the scene about twenty (20) minutes later. Both of the white women were still there along with two (2) of the white men. The others had left. There was no blood where the black man had been. No police were there. No crowd had gathered. No one was excited. The homeless were sleeping soundly in the grounds of the church. I assumed there had been no violence.Yet I keep thinking I could have done more. I kept thinking about Malcolm X’s admonition that whites should confront the racist attitudes and actions of whites.
Posted by Douglas on from Sydney, Australia 07/01 at 06:55 AMHello Expendables...from sunny Astoria.
Welcome to the site, Douglas...and thanks for sharing. Your story is not only all-too-familiar on a personal basis, it also serves as a powerful metaphor in a global sense. Thanks again...hope to see you here again soon.
Where’s everyone else? Don’t tell me you all celebrate the 4th of July weekend…
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/01 at 11:28 AMMew and Uncle Joe are slightly merry and watching the England-Portugal quarter-final round a mates house.
I’ve started reading Endgame, bully for people in salmon-infested areas, I doubt clophill could support too many. Can’t fault it so far however.
The only extremely weak story I have is from the train a few weeks ago. I was on my regular commute from south-central London, when some poor sod decided to end it all. All the trains in south London were cancelled, due to their turning the electricity off to get emergency vehicles on the line. So I get a few hours to travel (by bus) rather than work. Prior to that however I was treated to a pleasant rant by a fellow commuter about how a) the British always gave up immediately (I’m not sure whether this was directed at the suicidal guy or the other commuters) and b) (I shit you not) we’d never have had this with Hitler. Either way the callousness of the chap, one of those people who have a small yacht somewhere and vote Conservative, struck me. Yeah, thats it.Posted by Mew on from kevs barbecue 07/01 at 01:54 PMHey there, Mew. How do you feel about the penalty kicks deciding a match?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/01 at 02:30 PMTo paraphrase our (unfavourite) churchill, its the worst way of deciding a match - except for all the others. Regrettably football doesn’t lend itself to any kind of objective scoring system. The poorer team can win, and no-one but the fans of the better team will care.
I’d have had no complaints about Argentina winning the tournament, but now we’re left with 4 teams none of whom are by any stretch of the imagination exceptional. Brazil could have been extraordinary, but are now reduced to the irrelevance of every team that haven’t given a shit. Good riddance, though I’ve no fondness for the French side that beat them.
I’m off now to have my Defeat Cigar, and damn any Portugese man’o’war who gets in my way…
Posted by Mew on from another mates house 07/01 at 05:55 PMWelcome back, Mickey!
In news just in: ‘Israeli missile hits Palestinian PM’s office’.My story: we visited the US from 24 March to 11 April 2003. On our arrival in San Francisco on 24 March we took the airport shuttle bus. We then overheard the following: when told that there were anti-war demonstrations in San Francisco, the (rather well-dressed) man behind us commented: “Don’t these people have anything better to do? I live in a city of 500,000 commies.”
And an international draft is headed your way, Mickey - will be posted at the end of this week. More details in an email.
‘Hi’, Douglas (a fellow Australian, no less) and Mew.
It has been blowing a gale in Daylesford overnight but now the weather is improving.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 07/01 at 07:07 PMMew: Since my Dad was born in Italy, I’ll root for them.
Hello Helga. Thanks for the story.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/01 at 09:15 PMG’night, all. I look forward to the end of this silly holiday weekend and a return to “normal” Expendable conversation.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/01 at 09:48 PMJoe from Maine e-mailed me about this post so I figured I’d share:
Good Morning Mikey...I just read your eating at a diner in Virginia
Beach...ROAR!I was stationed at NAS Oceana in the late 60’s...I was in the ‘suck’ as
the Navy was called by many. The local towns people were always in an
uproar about jets flying so low one could read the serial numbers on the
bottom of the wings...this is no exaggeration! It was not the sound of
freedom...it was the noise of complete insanity, and aeronautical
cowboys. Once during an air show, as a celebration spectacle to launch
an aircraft carrier cruise to Vietnam...2 pilots apparently lost their
position in the formation while flying too low...went into the
ocean...both dead...death...while preparing to go commit murder. And the
locals should celebrate?The other thing many don’t know...military jets and probably commercial
jets have ‘fuel dump’ valves to lighten the plane, I think, usually for
landing...Now I really don’t know how much fuel gets dumped into the
atmosphere during regular ‘practice’ flights...and we might want to find
out or maybe not.The Virginia Beach area was very nice during that time...as you know,
development went nuts like everywhere else.Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 07/02 at 10:26 AM
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