the invisible [wo]man

yesterday's Funny-of-the-Day happened in the parking lot of our local Toys R Us. me, PC, and my homie had gone there to try to catch some deals, and when we pulled into the shopping center, we were greeted by a bit of a crowd. it was manageable, however, but parking spots were at a premium. my friend spotted a park 2 or 3 spaces away from the door, but since i was boxed in by a car to my back and to my front, i couldn't back up, so she suggested that she'd hop out and stand in the space while i went around, a feat that would only take 1 minute at the most.

cool, right? well, by the time i made it back around and down the aisle, The Man was pulling up. he saw my friend standing in this spot, and me less than 10 feet away with my turn signal on. she tried to motion to him, in the most polite way possible that she was saving the spot and i was trying to get in, but he wouldn't budge. so a standoff ensued.

oh, by the way: The Man didn't ever look my friend in the eye the ENTIRE time that he sat there refusing to move, which was about 5 loooong minutes.

he eventually moved and i swung into the spot. we laughed about it off and on all day, and tied the incident into bigger issues of entitlement that all of us encounter, sometimes daily, from the Majority.

how many of us have had situations where we walk into a store and no one even speaks? or, we're standing in line, and someone cuts right in front of us, and then tries to act like they didn't even notice that we were standing there? the clerk that puts our change on the counter instead of in our hand? the list goes on and on......

and, in my experience and opinion, it is almost ALWAYS the Majority.

so, what now? we know that BO had scores of support from ALL races. but we also know that there are many ppl who claim to be "liberal" and "colorblind" but still wouldn't vote for a Black man...and then there are those who definitely AREN'T liberal and colorblind and didn't vote for him either.

many email fwds and jokes have been going around, jokingly telling Black folks how NOT to act, even tho BO won. and, the overarching theme is:

we AREN'T supposed to exercise any semblance of (false) entitlement.

this is not a free pass to just act a fool bc a brother is the President-Elect...and...well, because we can, lol.

and many of them expect us to do just that.

so, like my friend, we can stand our ground, keep our cool....

and give each other a head-nod and a wink after the fact.

no acting a fool necessary :-)