Okie dokie... I will, however, tell you a story:
Once, when I was much younger, I was on a bus with my wife on my way to Georgetown, in Northwest D.C. At a bus stop on Capitol Hill, a rough looking black teenager came on the bus, and as he passed us there was something that made me uneasy, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I had the impulse to move my wife's purse, but I didn't, because I was afraid that my unease was vaguely racist. Well, at the next stop he snatched the purse, that I could easily have moved with out any commotion, and as I chased him out of the bus, only stopping as he hopped a fence into a project, I felt like an awful fool. I knew, knew! that he had eyed the purse as he went by, but my inability to make a clear case, and my fear of acting according to stereotypes, led me to folly.Of course, if I had moved the purse, or if he had changed his mind for some reason, I might never have known for sure that I was right. |
