misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

Walking down the heart of Harlem, 125th street, an electric web of vendors selling bootlegged copies of Kill Bill 2, fake Gucci purses, and roasted walnuts, hair-braiding stores speckled throughout, Magic Johnson Movie Theatres, and BBQ joints, it is often difficult to find a fellow white person. And if I do, they aren't quite white like me. Not the suburban San Diego kind of white. Not the tucked-in , plaid Gap shirt kind of white. Not the voted for George Bush in 1992 kind of white. They are the tattoed, spiked, leather necklace, kind of white. Every hour, you'll see a double-decker, tinted-window, tourist bus filled with old white people who flew out from Florida, Ohio, or Oregon to see NYC. And as part of seeing NYC is seeing Harlem, they eagerly pay the tour guides for a chance to drive safely through Harlem. They don't want to smell the scent of the city, taste the food, or hear the sounds, they simply want to look down at it all, perched comfortably in the air-conditioned confines of the bus. And look they do, gazing out at all the black people, as if they are in a tram taking a tour of the Wild Animal Park, and the black people are the wild animals they fear. They press their sweaty wrinkled hands up against the windows, peering out on the world they've read about, perfectly comfortable in their bus seats, far away from the dangerous creatures they are looking upon. The tour guide pipes away about the Harlem Renaissance, the recent resurgence of culture, the reason for roasted walnuts. And before they know it, they are through Harlem, on the way to Central Park. But they sit content, knowing they have their war stories of having braved the locals of Harlem. And when they return to the haven of their suburban home, somewhere in Hinton, Missouri, they'll assemble the pictures the hastily shot through the tinted windows of the tour bus, and show their eager friends exactly what the heart of Harlem looked like. And somewhere in the sea of street vendors, graffitti, and local stores, they'll see a single white man, with a tucked-in plaid shirt and straight blue jeans, standing before a Popeye's, looking awkwardly comfortable among the sea of black.