I'm not even remotely racist: regular readers will remember the several times I've recounted the "When Obozo ran for President I didn't even notice on my own that he was black" story, so I won't bore with another retelling. But the fact is, I was raised absolutely color blind, and was that way well into my twenties.

But it's gotten to the point where every time I'm behind a black person in line at a store, it's some totally crazy combination of them not knowing what to buy, sitting there arguing about some pretend coupon they imagined in their heads but which doesn't exist, or something else which causes them to take four times longer than anyone else, just to get through a checkout line.

Sure enough, I hit up Leeann Chin for lunch today, and in front of me was a black guy with dreads, accompanied by a tall, fat white woman-- the type who is in the relationship for... the endowment; let's just leave it at that. I immediately thought, "Oh, great..." And sure enough, they sat there for minutes on end holding up the entire line trying to figure out what they wanted, arguing, asking about every last menu item, and so on. Then I got up there and order in like three seconds-- gee, that was tough.

After we're all done paying, I set my food down on a table so I could get my drink. As I'm filling up, the black guy got up and walked towards the counter. I turned around to make sure he didn't swipe my food as he went past, thinking "Man, am I turning into a racist? Hah!" But nope, my perception was validated! The guy asked the cashier for a container of sauce, then stole product off the counter as the worker had his back turned!

The worker saw it compliments of his peripheral vision, and had to shout at the guy three times-- "Hey, that cost money!"-- to get the fellow to acknowledge. Finally, in a reluctant "why are you inconveniencing me" kind of tone, the black guy responded-- while still not returning the merchandise to the counter-- "how much does it cost?" Meanwhile, I could hear the fat girl friend-- not the words, but the tone of her voice: annoyed, but not angry. What does that say about her, that she wouldn't dump someone who just attempted theft?

Black people like to complain about racism, and in the 1950s I think they had a great claim. But today it's their actions which cause otherwise color-blind people like me to watch their backs whenever black people are around. Or in the words of even Al Sharpton, "When I hear people behind me on the street at night, I'm relieved when I turn around and see that they're white." It makes me very sad, but the statistics and my own lived experiences don't lie.