madame zenobia's

the scene
i'm looking thru a stack of books on sale (picked up voices of the self: a study of language competence by keith gilyard; diversity and society: race, ethnicity, and gender by joseph f. healey; and leadership and the new science: discovering order in a chaotic world by margaret j. wheatley). the young woman is across the way, trying to decide what frame to buy. two women shopping in the bookstore on a wednesday afternoon.

"excuse me."

"yes?"

"do you work here?"

"no."

there was about to be a girlfight.

and for a hot minute, i wanted to ask her what made her think that i worked there. instantly, i was furious. it wasn't like we were shopping in target and i had on a red polo and khaki pants. i'm wearing a fuschia t-shirt with a graphic, a long linen skirt, and pink ballerina slippers. and i tried y'all, i mean i really tried to think of how she could have made that mistake. i tried not to take it there. but after i analyzed what just went down, i could only come to one conclusion.

now i know that i'm bringing my baggage and my assumptions, and i'll readily admit that. whether it happens or not, i perceive that i am under surveillance when i walk into a store or drive down the street or walk into the classroom or present at a conference. perception, in many instances, is much more "truthful" than reality, you know? my dad always reminds me to consider impact versus intent. perhaps the young woman just need some help with her frame selection. maybe she just wanted to reach out to someone and solicit another opinion--i do that sometimes. but regardless of her intentions, the impact is that i have been reminded that "even if you in a benz/you still a nigga in a coop/coupe."

poem for the day

"Frederick Douglass"
Robert Hayden

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.