I was standing in line at Trinity Cathedral yesterday, waiting patiently for my used-to-include-delicious-Blue-Death-chili food bag (like a sack lunch, but with canned goods), when suddenly a verbal altercation behind me pierced the wall of sound I like to surround myself with whenever I'm out suffering the babbling brook of humanity.
It was yet another angry black man from out of state, who is so bitter about being in a mostly white town that he projects his discomfort and anxiety onto the nicest white people in the country by accusing them of being racist — another New Portland social phenomenon I'm already beyond sick and tired of. I've even heard the occasional black go so far as to assert that they CAN'T be racist! Yet my experience has been there's a lot more black-on-white predation in this town than vice versa. So, you're getting back in touch with your African heritage by selling some credulous cracker oregano sprayed with Lysol®? Healing the generations of pain born out of slavery and segregation by punching a white guy in a church lunch because he wouldn't let you use his TapatÃo®? It's embracing of victim-hood — especially endemic among the impoverished — that encourages worldviews and lifestyles that hinder anyone, black or white, from feeling good about themselves and living comfortable and enjoyable lives. Just think, if the Jews had done in Lisbon in the fifteenth century what black people are doing right now in Baltimore, they wouldn't have even lasted long enough to experience the Holocaust! Not only that, but victims have a distressing tendency to turn into abusers, ensuring a world perpetually enshrouded in darkness.
If I understood the situation properly — which I was at first trying not to because it was annoying — the black guy was angry at the white guy behind him in line because he thought the latter had called him a nigger. Maybe, but this is Portland, Oregon not Atlanta, Georgia, so I'm pretty confident the conflict was born out of kill-all-the-white-people delusion; this isn't the first time I've seen black people go off similarly on the whites around them, with nary an n-bomb to have dropped out of Caucasian lips. This kind of aggressive shit-talking would doubtless have gotten them into a heap of trouble back where they come from (unless they're even more segregated back East than they were in Apartheid South Africa!), so I wouldn't be surprised if they're venting all the bile they had to suppress in public back home. (We really do indulge damaged antisocial people too much here in Portland!) Even if the guy did call the guy a nigger, his malfeasance was immediately eclipsed by the hating-on-whitey tirade that lasted nearly half an hour and was still going on even after I walked off disgusted but victual-laden. Hitler would have taken notes! Apparently we Caucasians are all corrupted by Neanderthal genes into monstrous half-human world destroyers who twist the noble science and technology of Africans to nefarious exploitative ends, and are ultimately the root of all the social evils and environmental woes of our planet. Which reminds me of how Christians until recently justified their bigotry toward black people by regarding them as being descended from Noah's cursed youngest son Ham — even though no such curse is mentioned anywhere in the bible. Can I get an “Untermensch!” from the congregation? Just WHO was being the racist in this scenario? The poor target of this Afro-American fury just stood there silently, shuffling his feet nervously, probably waiting to get attacked ... not looking at all like a Klansman.
Like I mentioned earlier, this isn't the first time I've encountered these new angry African American immigrant indigents. I get that they hate their sucky lives, probably even hate themselves for being such downtrodden losers, and like everyone who feels disenfranchised look for convenient scapegoats to paint heir bulls eyes onto. Hell, I've been doing a lot of that lately myself! Recently I've been struggling bitterly with a skewed class-warfare hatred of so-called Yuppies, going so far as to snarl and sometimes even shout out poseur “Up the Revolution!” vitriol at them as I lug my bags full of recyclables down the sidewalks in Northwest Portland. Never mind the fact that they aren't Yuppies, or they are and it's not their fault I'm where I am. Well, Mr. Wanna-Be Black Panther, you're not healing bruised race relations and in fact are only reinforcing prejudice by acting like you did yesterday; just like all I'm accomplishing when I do what I is show the so-called Yuppies just how churlish we lumpen-proletariat are.
