gawk

today was another sporadic sunny day in portland, so of course i took the opportunity to be out and about. i went to see a friend and we went walking around the neighborhood. a car with some black guys drove by and they about broke their necks looking at us walking along the sidewalk.

i promise you this isn't going to be another post about black men gawking and doing the 'yo baby what's up' thing. at first i thought, here we go again, with the black men and the gawking. and then i realized that i do the same thing without even realizing it. only i do it because once upon a time in portland, it seemed like we (the black people ) all knew each other. literally. when i was a kid, it was rare that i would go out to the store and see someone black and not know whose mom or dad or sister or brother it was. but back in those days (mmmm...around 1980-1990-ish) most black people lived on the northeast side. now it seems like we're all over portland more so than before.

so i guess it's just out of habit that when i see someone black, i take notice of them to do a mental face-scan to decide whether or not i know them. lately there are a lot more black people that i don't know because of portland growing so much.

so, i did kind of give those guys the benefit of the doubt. instead of ragging on them about being some sorry gawking losers, i thought maybe they just thought they knew me.