"ran out of gas today" post has reached a worldwide audience
I was wearing my Sunday best, on a Thursday, and this is what it led to. Received this message this morning.
"Hi, I'm writing to you from Amsterdam - but I'm a New Englander
originally. Some of my Boston friends posted a link to your
"Missed Connections" post on a shared internet forum we all
contribute to, and I wanted to respond to you. Obviously, you
don't have to read or reply to this e-mail - I just wanted to
drop you a line.
I've read the replies posted to you on Craig's List so far, and
apart from some seriously idiotic ones (alright, that's almost
all of them), I did read and somewhat agree with the guy whose
subject line was: My ass would have stopped to help your black
ass. I do think that in part your experience might be due to
the lazy and insular New England mentality. I know that - as
ashamed as I am to admit this - I'm probably too selfish to stop
my car in the rain to help someone push their van under most
circumstances - you mention you were wearing your Sunday best,
which I'd like to think would make me stop for you. However,
that lazy and insular mentality also acts as a cover for the
underlying - more insidious - racism characteristic of the
northern US, as opposed to the more "open" racism of the
southern US. I'm white - so for all the efforts I've made to
educate myself, I can't say if one area is more racist than
another. But I imagine that since New England is generally
speaking so white (I'm originally from New Hampshire, which is
98% white), and Boston is the largest New England city, Boston
probably acts as a funnel for lots of people who have been
raised in monocultural white towns, which as it is makes people
less likely to be open to other cultures, and possibly brought
up by parents who've passed on their own ignorant, racist
attitudes.
On the positive side for Boston, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and
Cornell West (until recent years) teach at Harvard University as
part of their Afro-American Studies faculty - arguably the best
of its kind. One of my fellow students in a course part of the
somewhat-less-presitigious UNH African American Studies program
- a young Black poet - said to our class, "Everyone's racist,
I'm racist - you're racist. The best we can do is recognise
that and try to improve ourselves." One of my professors, also
within that program, told me that while one person alone might
not be able to make as big a difference in society as we might
like, what we can do is to make a difference in our own lives
and to take action in our own lives to make a difference to
those we come into contact with. Or something like that. In
any case, those are two thoughts that I often reflect on and try
to manifest in my own life, and I think that your post on
Craig's List probably caused a lot of people - maybe not
everyone who read it, but a lot of people - to reassess their
way of thinking and hopefully to examine their own behavior,
including myself. You might remember those tacky bracelets
born-again Christians were sporting a few years back reading
"What Would Jesus Do?" - hopefully your post made more than just
me think, What would I have done?
Anyway, blah-blah, sorry to ramble on like an old fool. Your
post struck a chord with me. I hope your suit & tie aren't
ruined.
Take care,
XXX