[written in mid-November 2019]
When I came back from Iraq I worked for a couple years for [redacted, an armor car service in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S.]. One similarity was driving into a bad place for a living. The people that need an armored car service do cash business in bad areas. So, gentrification brings a need for what is a thankless line-of-work. On its face, who wants to be the guy hauling cash in those circumstances?
An interesting observation was getting in touch with what it is to be that crazy white guy. They, blacks, seem to have this special mental space reserved for detecting the white guy who will fight back, and they just don’t mess with you. I am not accusing them of calculating behavior—it’s like they have a sixth sense for crazy, for detecting the non-victim personality.
I’d liken it to the wild cat rule. When you are in the woods and you run into a wild cat, you leave it alone. You might be able to kill it, but you are getting bit, getting clawed, so you leave it alone.
I definitely think that there was something about my service that imprinted itself on me in a way that they [blacks] could detect.
[a question about empty hand training]
I taught combatives in the military and we always instructed that a closed fist was not your empty hand go-to, that punching could damage your hand and compromise your ability to handle your weapon. In police work it’s the same thing and I was mindful of that in armored car work.
[a question about present occupation]
I went to college on the GI Bill and am working on my [author cannot recall the degree] now.
"They, blacks, seem to have this special mental space reserved for detecting the white guy who will fight back, and they just don’t mess with you."
This has been my experience, from high school working rough manual labor jobs up through now, when I have been blessed with income sufficient to no longer need to go into rough neighborhoods. But it happens every now & then while traveling cross-country by automobile.
It is the third law of THOT-Ho dynamics, actually.