Misconceptions and Fear Equal Confusion

I love mass transit. It is a laboratory. It is a rolling mental health waiting room. It is the best of us and the worst of us locked in communion.

This is my testimony.

I was gazing out the window, looking at the mountains behind man-made buildings and wondering for the #1875 time what have they witness, what came and disappeared.

I noticed a group of people waking down the street. Two by two. Focused.

There was a sign but I couldn't read it. Then a whole bunch more people started walking down the street. They appeared to be almost all white people.

"That's strange."

I thought to myself. I kept trying to look for a sign or a reason for this to be happening. Was it right-wingers or Tea Party people?

I didn't see any sheets or confederate flags tatted on anybody's body.

They weren't loud, or talkative. They just walked.

Still, I got a little twitchy. Recent events have made everybody a bit more nervous.

The gentleman in the seat behind me was beginning to freak out.

"What all them white folks walking down the street for? It is a protest or parade or something?
You know they don't walk if they don't have to; must be something bad going on!"

And then his imagination leaped like a rocket; pulling up all the recent pain and hurts. He went from zero to 60 in two minutes, getting louder and more agitated.

I'm still looking for a sign. A poster. Anything to restore the silence quo.

This is my fault. I should have had my glasses fixed. I got to where I needed to be and got off the bus.

I crossed the street.
I stood on the corner.
From a small distance, I watched them go by.

It was a walk for suicide prevention. Many had tee-shirts with the phase Out of the Darkness.

Oh. Yes. People been off worlding themselves at an accelerated rate.

And then I kept looking. Where the black folks? The Asians and Latinos?

Might have been in another part of the line.

I don't know.  I was having a moment of intersectionality* between mental health, race, fear, depression, the unknown and burning desire for some Blue Moon bread.

Some days are just so dang confusing.


 *Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination.