Today's Adventure In Blatant Racism

I'm not one to complain about racist things that happen to me. I simply have better things to do with my energy but today's episode just had to be shared because of just how stupid it was.

So currently I am on a 10k step streak that hasn't been broken since September 5th. Unfortunately my app and/or the back-end database that keeps this data got corrupted and I no longer have an official record on the app. But I soldier on anyway. I want to see if I can go the entire year doing 10k steps (minimum). The lockdown has killed my rainy day sheltered walking so I've walked in some pretty bad weather. But anyway I digress.

So walking my usual route I came upon an older white woman of average female height and moderate build. She had on a mask and was apparently taking her usual walk. So we were walking up a hill and she was nearing the crest when I noticed she stopped. I was pretty far back so I couldn't see. Then I saw a man at the top of the hill at the corner. Black guy. never seen him before but there are a lot of people out I've never seen before. It appears he was waiting on someone or the bus. Couldn't tell which but I thought maybe someone had passed out and was laid out on the ground. As I got closer the woman turned about and saw me and then turned back towards the man. She did this a few times so I looked back down the hill to see if there was something coming. Nope. Nothing.

Finally the woman continued up the hill making a very wide arch around the man, which made her go deep onto someone's lawn. Then she continued on. Shortly I got to the top of the hill where she was and saw that there was no passed out person, no dog (and yes, DOGS have been a problem. I lot of people apparently have Pit bulls and have them on long leashes). Anyway. Nothing of any kind indicated that there was something amiss. The only thing was that the guy was black, neck tattoo and dressed in medical scrubs under a jacket, with his ID clearly showing and a backpack.

As I passed him I asked what that was all about and he said "I have no idea". But we knew.

As I got closer to the woman she started "jogging" and then darted across the street. I just shook my head and kept it moving.

Now look, I'm not against being situation aware. I tend to keep a mental note of everyone around me and I don't drown out sound with my music. But to be shook to a dead stop on the sight of a black man? in a relatively diverse neighborhood that does not have a high or even moderate crime rate? Yeah, that's some racist shit right there.