Blacks Love Nice Cars and Nice Clothes

I was at Wal-Mart, getting my oil changed. You know how you just pull up and wait for someone to come out, with that big old PDA-looking thing to kind of pre-register you for your oil change? Well, before any employee could make it out to take down my information, an old man comes out. He looked to be about average sized, sixty-five to seventy-five years old, white guy, white haired, just your kind of salt of the earth factory guy, from back when we had factories everywhere.

We made eye contact, and he veered off of his path, toward me, as I sat in my car, he was smiling. He made that circular motion we make when we want someone to roll down their windows, that motion that came from a time when almost no one had power windows. I rolled down my window to see what he wanted, and he immediately struck up a conversation as if we were familiar with each other. I was fine with it. It is so easy to be virtually familiar with people you will probably never meet, not that we do not necessarily ever want to meet. This took a little more skill, but I talk for a living, and write a lot, from children s' books, to college papers at the masters level, to lots of professional writing of various genres. Communication might even be a pastime of mine, even though I feel more accomplished at it outside of the home. . I had nothing better to do, so we talked.

He commented that he noticed I was driving a KIA. It was just kind of matter of-fact, no apparent judgment. Obama has got to stop the spending, it can't work, the old man worried out loud. He said that he would not be surprised if we had to let General Motors die. General Motors would simply join the companies he had already seen go the way of the dinosaur; Studebaker, Edsel, Packard, Checker, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, etc. The old fellow strongly disagreed with the economic stimulus package, in general.

I wondered, Does President OBama see any alternative to trying to save the American car industry? What would that do to Michigan and the rest of the upper Midwest? I suspected this old fellow had already gotten through to his retirement, using the same plan that no longer works. What about the people who need time to come up with a new plan? Later in the day, I was watching the local public access channel. Education was the topic, a local superintendent was the guest. He pointed out that Michigan is a good generation late in responding to the current realities. I was reminded of one of my professors, who mentioned that the industry has not brought in new blood in a generation. When he was an up and coming teacher, and then a principal, he had high school drop-out friends who were making way more than he made. They were working in the auto and auto supply factories, and at the time, seemed clever to not invest in a college career that offered no apparent advantage for the money and effort.

I don't know what stream of thought led him to say to me, a black man, "you know, blacks just love nice cars and nice clothes." I think it was because we were inferring how Americans had monumental issues with misplaced priorities. Maybe he was giving an example of a particular wasteful behavior he had noticed during his interaction with black folk over the years. I grew up with that wasteful mindset. I know it to be true among blacks, and many, many others. I have changed dramatically over the years though. I'm driving a six and a half year old KIA, by choice! I really did not take offense, but I was glad our talk was interrupted by the oil change clerk. "Remember", the old man said, as we parted, the Bible is your blueprint for how to live, have a good day." I wondered if he was a high school graduate? Whether he was or not, he gave me a lot to think about. I do not know what I learned from him, but that may reveal itself another day.

The very next day, I was back at Wal-Mart, getting some primer for the bathroom walls. As I walked away from my register my eye caught an older white fellow at another register, checking out his merchandise. I looked at him and was not quite sure, was it the old fellow from yesterday? I just could not really say. I am not saying that all old white men look alike. I am just saying that I could not tell if he was the fellow from yesterday, or not. The lesson from our encounter stareted to crystallize for me. Life is typically not black and white in my opinion. It is instead, endless shades of gray.