I am so completely a creature of the present tense that Baltimore is rapidly fading from my mind.
But there’s one more encounter I wanted to write about before it turns into lavender dust on my nightstand.
And that is that when![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lookfar and I went walking that first evening along the harbor-side promenade, we heard chanting sounds and smelled incense, so we decided to investigate their source.
Turned out to be a man reading verses from the Old Testament.
Now. He didn’t look like the type of man you’d expect to find reading verses from the Old Testament in a public venue being youngish and handosme amd fashionably dressed, as were the ten or so members of his entourage.
Were there posters? There may have been posters hanging from the sides of a small table as well as handouts. But we were not the people he was interested in evangelizing if, indeed, evangelizing was his goal. We hung out on the sidewalk, six feet or so away from the main action, and presently he called over to us, “And what do you think about reparations for the Black Man?”
(Obviously, I’m paraphrasing since I can’t remember the conversation word for word.)
“Reparations? Oh, I’m in favor of them,” I said, andlookfar concurred.
“And what do you think fair reparations would consist of?”
“Money,” I said. “Though off hand I can’t name a precise amount.”
His eyes glittered. “But that wouldn’t be reparation. The Bible doesn’t recognize that as reparation.”
Then he began reading an underlined passage from one of the more obscure books of the Old Testament, Obadiah I think maybe, because he subsequently began ranting about Jacob and Esau.
Since the white man had enslaved the Africans for the greater part of 250 years, the only proper reparation would be for the African man to enslave the whites for at least twice that long—and what did I think of that?
After he was done, the entourage became a chorus: Yes-s-s-s-s. Some of the entourage may have begun to rock softly on the balls of their feet.
I had to be very careful not to laugh.
Baby, if you think you’ve got a guilty white liberal on your rhetorical hook, think again. Systemic racism exists and it needs to stop, but I don’t feel personally responsible for it, not even the tiniest little bit. When white liberals launch into conversations about “privilege,” I roll my eyes. Yes, we all need to fight against injustice. What else is new?
“The New Testament refutes practically every single thing that was written in the Old Testament,” I said.
“And Jesus was a Black man! A proud black man!”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’m Jewish.”
“Jewish!” he said. He may have actually recoiled. Then I noticed that one of the posters was some kind of chart. I didn’t look at it terribly closely, but it seemed as though it might be some sort of graphic indicating the various lengths of time various demographics might have to spend in slavery to make up for the injustices done to the Black man.
Too bad we live in a time of extreme political correctness, I thought. Because this would actually make an excellent standup comedy bit.
lookfar and I made our goodbyes at this point.
Such an odd group of people, that man and his entourage. True believers? Absolutely! But what exactly was the belief system? Race wars? Louis Farrakhan fandom?
Probably the latter.
But there’s one more encounter I wanted to write about before it turns into lavender dust on my nightstand.
And that is that when
lookfar and I went walking that first evening along the harbor-side promenade, we heard chanting sounds and smelled incense, so we decided to investigate their source.Turned out to be a man reading verses from the Old Testament.
Now. He didn’t look like the type of man you’d expect to find reading verses from the Old Testament in a public venue being youngish and handosme amd fashionably dressed, as were the ten or so members of his entourage.
Were there posters? There may have been posters hanging from the sides of a small table as well as handouts. But we were not the people he was interested in evangelizing if, indeed, evangelizing was his goal. We hung out on the sidewalk, six feet or so away from the main action, and presently he called over to us, “And what do you think about reparations for the Black Man?”
(Obviously, I’m paraphrasing since I can’t remember the conversation word for word.)
“Reparations? Oh, I’m in favor of them,” I said, and
lookfar concurred.“And what do you think fair reparations would consist of?”
“Money,” I said. “Though off hand I can’t name a precise amount.”
His eyes glittered. “But that wouldn’t be reparation. The Bible doesn’t recognize that as reparation.”
Then he began reading an underlined passage from one of the more obscure books of the Old Testament, Obadiah I think maybe, because he subsequently began ranting about Jacob and Esau.
Since the white man had enslaved the Africans for the greater part of 250 years, the only proper reparation would be for the African man to enslave the whites for at least twice that long—and what did I think of that?
After he was done, the entourage became a chorus: Yes-s-s-s-s. Some of the entourage may have begun to rock softly on the balls of their feet.
I had to be very careful not to laugh.
Baby, if you think you’ve got a guilty white liberal on your rhetorical hook, think again. Systemic racism exists and it needs to stop, but I don’t feel personally responsible for it, not even the tiniest little bit. When white liberals launch into conversations about “privilege,” I roll my eyes. Yes, we all need to fight against injustice. What else is new?
“The New Testament refutes practically every single thing that was written in the Old Testament,” I said.
“And Jesus was a Black man! A proud black man!”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’m Jewish.”
“Jewish!” he said. He may have actually recoiled. Then I noticed that one of the posters was some kind of chart. I didn’t look at it terribly closely, but it seemed as though it might be some sort of graphic indicating the various lengths of time various demographics might have to spend in slavery to make up for the injustices done to the Black man.
Too bad we live in a time of extreme political correctness, I thought. Because this would actually make an excellent standup comedy bit.
lookfar and I made our goodbyes at this point.Such an odd group of people, that man and his entourage. True believers? Absolutely! But what exactly was the belief system? Race wars? Louis Farrakhan fandom?
Probably the latter.
