d'Andre: "The coolest white man on the planet is Captain James Tiberius Kirk."
Me: "But he's a fictional character."
d'Andre: "Exactly."
I don't often think about being white, as I've written before. When I go home to Columbus, I certainly am aware of it. What differentiates Seattle, however, is that here it's usually white people who make me feel white. I'll look at Percy in his safari hat and and start thinking what a cracker-ass motherfu—and then abruptly stop when I recall that for the most part, he's one of me. It's mortifying.
Nowhere do I feel this horror more than at concerts in Seattle. Friday night, I saw phenomenal bluesist Ruthie Foster. I will never wash my ears again. Unfortunately, I also saw college-educated, turtlenecked, lip-biting, middle-aged white people attempting to dance. Their arms and feet moved to a rhythm all their own, as if they were swatting and stomping on a swarm of drunken bees. The dancers' eyes were closed, lest they dispel delusions of grace and ability. Meanwhile, these folks' paunches bobbed hypnotically from left to right.
Some shit cannot be unseen.
It made me feel really, really white. Humiliated by association. I wanted to hold a blanket in front of these people and interrupt Ruthie's line of sight, but I worried that it would look too much like a white guy's approximation of an Arabic dance.