It makes me kind of sad, actually.

——

A woman walks in, wearing a forest green mock turtleneck. Black felt hat, front pinned up with a large black flower. Back of the shirt is pulled up; she probably doesn’t know. Her teeth are misshapen; she’s wearing glitter on her face. She is black, middle-aged.

She’s looking for a slice of pizza, but you can’t really tell – the pronunciation is hampered by her teeth.

Trying to be elegant, but she doesn’t have a chance. Not here. Not with these people.

——

My family came to the campus this weekend. Walked past an older guy on a bench, rolling a joint. He looked up, then continued with his work. I hope my brothers and sisters didn’t notice.

Death to the white man, white woman walk over black man like a dog. Graffiti on the subway.

The ghetto apartments. Little girls with beads in their hair. Little plastic beads, one by one.

He’s probably my age. Maybe a little bit younger. Through the door to the next train car, the one marked ‘employees only’, and ‘danger’. Would you want to buy socks, sir.

There are never any white children on the train.

——

I’ve only been here for a couple of months. Heh. A middle-class white male, straight out of nowhere.

The sudden racial mix didn’t bother me for the first few weeks, which was slightly odd, now that I think about it. There are probably four non-whites in Rhinelander, and everyone there knows who they are. Now I’m here – Chicago’s diverse enough, let alone IIT. Half the population’s from India. (Bit o’ exaggeration there, yeah.)

And what I’m saying here is hardly new. It just bothers me that this is all so obviously cyclical – established racial inequity turning back to itself. If that makes sense.

/me muses I don’t think I meant this entry to be about racism. I think I was going to compare a certain view of life to a Fourier series. But I guess this makes sense too.

photo credit: bfegter