The Green Line

My roommate would be surprised that it does not bother me to be the only white face on the bus. He is a tall black man, a good Christian and a business minded entrepreneur. I need to tell you he is black, because I am white, and I am living in a black Chicago neighborhood.

Is that racist?

It’s the Northern part of Hyde Park, which makes me a Sox fan and a Green Line rider. It has been interesting telling white Chicagoans I ride the green line and watching the eyebrows rise and face sprout the “Oh so do you know. . .”. Yeah, I know. I figured it out. As the Green Line train thundered south, the people on board slowly, stop by stop, grew more and more black. It became clear I was going to a. . . not a ghetto. . .not a hood. . .a black neighborhood. Was I afraid? Yes and no. I am from San Antonio Texas, whose population is heavily Latino. Often, on the bus, in a store, on the street I have been the only white guy. So I ain’t got that automatic drop-kick testicle shrinking fear from being around a lot of Melanin. But, This is a new city for me, and I might be going into a neighborhood . . .where. . . strangers aren’t welcome.

Is that racist?

I walked the whole way from the train stop to the address given. It’s a place of brownstones; lovely three to four story houses like I’ve seen in my dreams. There are some empty fields, some abandoned buildings and a lot of rebuilt and refurbished brownstones gleaming with the freshness of the recent stone work. And the farther I walked, the more frequent the shiny homes became. When I got to the address , it was the best looking apartment I had seen so far and close to several little chop suey shops and a grocery store. I knocked at the appointed hour, and a smiling man answered the door, with whom I felt comfortable with instantly. I wondered how he felt about me being white or if he had guessed. We had met obliquely on Craig’s list, so it could be either way.

I’m not going to ask, of course.

That would be racist.

We got along really well, and seemed to be at similar stages in our lives. Once confirmed we were both heterosexuals, the deal was pretty much set. The place is great, and when Mark showed me the view from the roof and I saw the skyline shrouded in winter’s hands, I would have paid him any amount to live there.

I moved in, and settled in the empty white room, and immediately had to go and get a head shot done. And this began the daily test of the Green Line. There’s a lot of black people at the Green Line. It has been casually hinted that there’s a few less at the Red line. The bus I take to get to the train goes to both, but the Green comes first. It’s a little more convenient, but a lot more black. I think about hanging on to the Red Line. Just about every time.

But. . .racist?

Something happened last night to make it all clear. I went to a Second City Show with a dear friend. A dear friend is a southern term which means it’s a member of another sex whom I have not had sex with nor do I intend to. The show was superb, and I will discuss that in the future, but I noticed and checked frequently that there was only one non-white face in the entire 150 person crowd. I had never seen that before. Ever. Back in San Antonio, ever crowd has at least
a few latino’s. I asked my friend and she confirmed that Comedy Improv seems to be a white thing.

I started to feel bad about it. I didn’t want the art of my love to be segregated. It bothered me the whole night and next day. I fought it, I didn’t want to accept that such a beautiful thing couldn’t appeal to black people. Then it hit me. Black music has a long tradition of improv in hip-hop and rap music. White folks have seen Eminem do it in Eight Mile. That’s big time Improv! Oh! I felt better immediately. It wasn’t that Comedic Improv was inherintly anti-black, it was that dramatic Improv was already a highly cultivated art form within the hip-hop music scene. They already had it covered!

So it’s not racist.

But everyday I’m gonna take the Green line test.