I grew up in suburbia, in New York. Dad was a dentist, so you go to school. Mom’s overprotective, so you don’t get in trouble. Black, Scottish and America Indian ancestry and go figure, I’m a nerd whose never been in a fight, let alone in trouble with the law.
I had ideas about what I wanted to do with my life. But Dad, Dad says go to college, so I go to college, enroll in a historical African American college in Baltimore, Maryland—Morgan State. What’s not to like?
As it turns out, a lot, a whole lot!
There are beasty creatures, who think they are female, wanting to date me and not understanding the word "no." No is not a huge compound word, and this is a university, so you would think it would be a known term.
What else? Yes, Morgan State has its own crime rate!
I’m on the phone, “You know, Dad, that they have a crime rate at this college?”
Not only does it have its own crime rate it has its own murder rate!
To go with that you get your own police force, blah, blah, blah-blah-blah. For five years I study for my film and mass communications degrees, and come to the conclusion that I’m already doing what I want to do and making money while I’m not studying this shit that is never going to help me do what I want to do, and I go fulltime in my field.
Things are looking up, time to get a place. I’m dating this girl downtown and she says I should move into the city. I’m like, “Nnnnno, I need to live out with these old Jews in Park Heights where I’m not going to be getting stuck-up on the street.”
So, I’m living out in Park Heights among the Jews who look at me like I’m coming to rape and scalp them every time I go out for a jog. I thought a jogging suit was a jogging suit and then discovered it’s an armed robbery uniform—like this shit is mandated and these guys [criminals] can’t do anything unless they are well-appointed in the latest athletic wear.
I was shopping at the Shoppers at Smith Avenue, eating a doughnut while I’m in line at the bank. I thought, “Wow, who would have ever thought to put a bank in a supermarket?”
Then it occurred to me, as I’m eating my doughnut, “Obviously someone who did not count on these two dudes next to me holding it up in broad daylight!”
[I remember this robbery. Phil was managing the place when it happened.]
Okay, so these dudes rob this place while I’m there with my girl. The one dude gets hit with the exploding dye pack outside. The other dude gets away. But I saw him. So I offered a description to the responding police officer, and the girl I’m with, who is a Morgan State student—a university student—tells me not to “snitch,” is acting like this dude who just robbed the bank I do business with is her brother or something. She’s like, “But you don’t understand, we can’t be snitching.”
And I’m like, really, “Apparently you don’t understand that I’m not that dude! I’m also not that dude who thinks robbing banks is okay, that waving a gun around next to me while I’m eating a doughnut is okay!”
I knew right then that the vast majority of women in Baltimore were going to be beneath consideration, especially if this is the kind of thug chick you ran into in college.
Eventually I get married to a girl who does not think crime is good—who is, not coincidentally, also not a native of Baltimore—but have to move down into Pimlico to afford an apartment, and guess what, the guy down the hall from me is a drug dealer! I have criminals crawling all over the place. My wife is arguing with this drug dealer about him smoking in his apartment, and I‘m like, “Really, you’re dragging me into this, because, we care about his health?"
So, I am moving out, back up to Park Heights where the old Jews will look at me jogging down the sidewalk in the morning and think that I’m “that dude.”
Hard to be an honest black man since you can't live among your own!
It's got to be tough being not that dude. I feel for Black people who are doing the right thing and just trying to get along. Unfortunately I'm a racist. Why? There's just too many Black people who are not doing the right thing. There's also too many Whites that are not likely to jack me up or rip me off or consider me as a White guy some kind of ATM. There's just no real percentage in hanging around or dealing with Black people at all. It's kind of like Chris Rock saying,"Black people are always wanting credit for doing something. Like the guy that says he takes care of his kids. You're supposed to take care of your kids...". While I can completely appreciate his predicament and do feel bad about it I've decided in the long term scheme of things that I just don't give a fuck about Black people. If I have any say so in the matter I'm done with them. I'm well past half my lifetime and I've never in my whole life had a Black person do anything nice for me or help me in any way. Maybe some of you have but I haven't . They've always just wanted me to do something for them. I've just had enough.