Black Man, White Woman: A Midnight Encounter at Lowell and Stanford

He Was Surprised I wasn't Afraid

I live in Oakland. I've lived here and hereabouts for the better part of my adult life. A good little chunk.

I don't really spend too much time being fearful of crime. Sure, you have to expect bike thieves to be no more than 10 feet away at all times, armed with liquid nitrogen and a safecracker's skill set, and lock up accordingly. Occasionally, you will lose a bike anyway, because the lions win some, and the hyenas win some too. It's the way of things.

It is life on the food-and-bicycle-chain.

But aside from that, I am just not inclined to be too paranoid about going out at night, or about sketchy parts of town or whatever. No matter what they tell you on the news, if I've learned anything at all from the stuff I've been through ( - much, much stuff..much.) - it's that most people aren't out to get you. Most people are not thinking about robbing you, raping you, or even taking your parking place. So if I have to go somewhere at midnight or something, I just go. I don't trip on footsteps behind me or someone walking on the other side of the street unless they give me a reason - there's things that people who mean you harm will do that give themselves away. Everyone else is cool with me.

So I wasn't really thinking about it when I was riding my bike someplace around midnight awhile ago, and a youngish black man hailed me from behind. "I just want to ask you one thing.", he said.

Now, I have to admit I'm a sucker for that one. See, I'm kind of a know-it-all, and when people say that, I'm always thinking maybe they'll ask me about my theory of sexual resonance, or if I think that a capitalist economy is inherently unfair. So I stopped, and turned around.

"Hi", I said, "What's up?"

As my cynical self had already surmised, he had indeed been about to try to chat me up in that way that is kinda predictable in these situations. However, something about my reaction had tripped him up, and he was plainly derailed. He looked at me funny for a minute while his conscious mind, formerly on autopilot, caught up. After a long moment, he said to me, "Wait a minute. You're not afraid of me..."