On Friday, Rachelle and I had a new gas stove delivered.
The guys who hooked it up were probably around 30 years old, and speaking with their West-Indian accents, they struck me as effortlessly cool. Immediately, I wanted them to like me.
Of course, I’m worse than incompetent when it comes to any mechanical matter, and always keep to the periphery when repairs or deliveries are being made. However, these guys had a number of questions, and so I made myself available, sitting in the living room with my laptop while they worked in the kitchen.
I decided to put on some music, and immediately found myself wondering what they guys in the kitchen would like to hear. Not only that, I also found myself wanting them to think that whatever I put on was “cool.” This, of course, paralyzed me with self-doubt.
I could not have been more middle-aged, emasculated or white. Sitting there in my living room, I debated whether I would be trying too hard if I put on Nick Cave, or if Sigur Ros was too dreary or Radiohead a cliche.
Worse, I argued with myself about whether putting on BLACK music was racist, and if they’d think I was an irredeemable moron if I put on K-os for their benefit.
In the end I went with The Flaming Lips– a band that’s part of my cultural norm– but I did so in the most cringingly self-conscious way imaginable.
One woman in my Facebook network, is always on the lookout for evidence of racism in North American society. She posts links offering evidence of various transgressions on an almost daily basis, and although I’m not in a position to say if the preponderance of these items are racist or not, it’s clear that reasonable people could disagree, and that she’s doing a valuable, if unpleasant job.
It is a burden to look for offense, I think, to see the darkness in people before the light.
There’s no doubt that there was a racial component to my consideration of what music the workmen would like, and obviously, it would be exhausting and insulting for these men, if every home they went into, were to play Hip-Hop or Reggae. But really, was my impulse to accommodation and my want for the workmen to accept me as cool, evidence of a debilitating racism, or was it merely a native, if clumsy, want for connection?