A little more than one year ago, I decided to engage in a year-long social science experiment to test a hypothesis. My friend Johnny Porn is Thai of Chinese descent. I am Jewish with a Greco-Russian background. Questions arose. Could these two people coexist in one apartment for a whole year? Could they increase their cross-cultural understanding? Certainly such questions are not unprecedented. The Jews and Asian immigrants have long found unity in The States. Jewish people frequently eat at Chinese restaurants on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. However, that is just one night’s dinner. Johnny and I decided to up the ante. I hypothesized that we could live together while gaining a better understanding of one another’s cultures, and he was willing to be part of this grand experiment. We planned to apply knowledge gleaned from this study to ease the tensions between Israel and Thailand, which have been engaged in a yearlong cold war over an incident involving some matzo ball soup, some Thai tea, a photo of The King, and a clumsy Rabbi (Finklestein).
Johnny and I moved into an Italian Market apartment last July 15. For more than a year, we went about our business. Coexistence was relatively peaceful, though not without the occasional conflict. Johnny is a mercurial character with a temper that leads him to spew biting remarks and open handed slaps that linger like napalm. He would frequently lose it over trivial stuff, e.g. he does not like is his tooth paste to be used to clean the toilet bowl; he does not like it when my prize rottweiler, Spanky, rolls around in his bed; he does not like it when I write “return to sender” on his mail and hand it back to the postman. Basically, Mr. Porn is a man who has always gotten his way. The moment I started rattling his cage, his temper became much more violent. Aside from this one snag, however, we ran a good, efficient household. It does not appear, though, that we understand each other any more than when we first took possession of the apartment. He could not grasp the concept of the large, Jewish cracker known as the matzo; and that box of Thai stuff, what the hell was that all about? It was just too confusing. Surprisingly, we have remained friends throughout this tumultuous year. Though my hypothesis was proven false, we did show that despite the cultural differences and emotional abuse, peaceful coexistence is possible. This reflects positively on the prospects of the American melting pot.
Celebrating the Departure and Impending Nuptials of Homer and Mary, a.k.a. HoMary
When I first moved to Philadelphia, I really did not know anybody. The one exception to this statement was good ol’ Homer. I grew up with Homer and his brother Granville in Houston, and Homer was up here doing Teach on Behalf of America. He immediately introduced me to his close lady-friend Mary, and we became cordially acquainted. Homer and Mary were always inviting me to things and mingling me with their teacher associates. Mary was always there to poke at my side fat for her own amusement and to constantly remind me that my erstwhile beard was a disgusting abomination to mankind. She also was thoroughly fascinated with my childhood ventriloquist dummy, Mr. Boopie. I have enjoyed our frank exchanges of ideas, and if nothing else comes from my move to Philadelphia, I acquired two close friends. They, along with my cousins, the Barrerases, made my relocation to Philadelphia much easier.
However, there is an old saying in my family (attributed to my Russian ancestor Nerwin Soodhalter) that all pleasant things must get to a point where they can no longer be described in the present tense. These words are quite applicable to the situation involving Homer, Mary, and the fair City of Brotherly Love. Homer took Mary to a mountain area and now they are betrothed to one another. They got jobs in Chicago, and they have now left Philadelphia forever. I just got back from Spain, so I have had little time to even process this information. However, I did make it back in time to attend a party in honor of all this news. Above are the pictures of what occurred. My lens caught no scandal, only happiness. I will look forward to paying them a visit in Chicago. HoMary, thanks for making my first two years in Philadelphia interesting and entertaining.
I just moved to a new apartment in South Philadelphia. It is about fifteen blocks south of my current location in the Italian Market. I had heard good things about the businesses in the area, so I decided to take a stroll to see what sort of restaurants and shops are located there. I saw this clothing shop called Man Magic, or something of that effect. I walked inside. After a moment, the manager or owner approached me to ask if I needed help. He had a heavily South Philly accent. I asked him what sort of clothes he was selling. He waved his unnaturally tanned arm to indicate that the following sentence would tell me about 75% of the store’s offerings. He then explained that much of the attire he sells is linen. It has been so hot lately that I had been thinking of purchasing some linen, so I was initially excited. The proprietor then leaned toward me and whispered that, “the linen’s for the blacks…” I was a bit surprised. I was not sure if that was some sort of common stereotype. I looked around, and there were many black customers browsing the store. The owner continued in a slightly derisive tone, “They wear a lot of it at their linen parties, or whatever…”
Honestly, I do not even know what that means. I politely looked at some of the clothes and left. I told my old roommate, Johnny Porn, and his fiancée, Ms. Blivion, about this odd encounter, trying to make some sense of this man’s assertion. What, exactly, is a linen party? I assume the man was asserting that black people get together, all wearing linen, to talk about linen and linen accessories. Perhaps there is some sort of large, linen enthusiast organization of which I am not aware. A linen party might be like a Tupperware party, where an organizer hosts the event to show everyone the latest in linen products. I wish I could have asked the store owner to elaborate, but there was no good way to ask without bringing attention to the fact that I was questioning his worldview (that black people have parties centered on the fact that attendees are wearing linen).
I had time to think about it on an airplane recently, and I recalled a conversation I had with my friend and cohort, McMillain. He suggested that when people put forth, or repeat as second hand, stereotypes and rumors, they are substituting lazy acceptance of an idea for critical thinking. Now, this is probably something true about all sorts of stereotypes and backward ideas, but it is still a good point worth considering. McMillain and I were discussing the whispering rumor campaign that exists on the internet about Barack Obama, asserting that the presumptive Democratic nominee attended an extremist madrassa in his childhood so that he could grow up to become a secret Muslim, radical black power Christian who is a Harvard educated liberal elitist that is too much of a wimp to fight our terrorist enemies, with whom he sympathizes. There was an email that was circulated with the picture of Obama in the Kenyan garb, probably made of linen. I know people who are otherwise intelligent human beings, capable of critical thought, who have bought into these rumors without question. I wondered aloud to McMillain about how people could buy into these preposterous internet rumors. My conclusion after our discussion is that, at its core, this phenomenon boils down to intellectual laziness. In the base of the Barack rumors, I think there are two different undercurrents at play. There are a few of us who still have a bit of latent racial prejudice in their hearts. For them, buying into these rumors is an easy way to lend a voice to the exhortations of their inner core without explicitly expressing the racial prejudice. For the vast majority, though, it is just easier to credulously believe these wild rumors than to exercise any sort of critical thought about Barack Obama’s message or policy opinions. This is unfortunate, because as much as I like Barack Obama, there are things he says with which I do not agree, and it is rare that media humans actually analyze his ideas in detail. They prefer to talk about flag pins.
Linen affinity and contradictory political rumors are not the only places I have seen this type of laziness interject itself into the civil discourse. I was in a dentist’s chair waiting to have my mouth inspected when I picked up a Newsweek magazine. One of the articles inside was about an alternative search engine. N’Gai Croal had written about how, since Google judge’s a page’s importance and relevance based on the behavior of the majority, minority searchers have to look toward the fourth or fifth result in a Google result list. A start up, using old search data, organized searcher interest by geographic location, then overlaid that with racial demographic data to rank pages based on the behavior of folks from predominantly African American areas of the country.
I do not know enough about this technology to know if this is a good idea or even feasible in the long run. It sounds interesting, and seems to be a challenging problem to solve for a developer. However, some of the author’s assumptions seem a bit flawed. At one point he writes:
For example, when users in an area with a large black population, like Atlanta, do a search for “Whitney,” they are more likely to be looking for the singer Whitney Houston or the civil-rights activist Whitney M. Young than for, say, the Whitney Museum, which might be choice No. 1 for users in an area with a large white population, like Boise, Idaho.
Now this is certainly an odd statement. It is a strange line to draw. White people like museums; black people like entertainers and civil rights figures. Of course, since racial populations are strictly homogeneous, the primarily white population of Boise, Idaho is just chock full of museum connoisseurs based on that whiteness. Atlanta is all about Whitney and her “Crack is Whack” agenda. People from the boonies in Iowa are all over the Smithsonian while our neighbors in Camden, New Jersey are all over - oh, I don’t know - Will Smith. We could play this game all day. The fact of the matter is, outside of New York City, few people probably know what the Whitney Museum is. I barely know. Most of this country is celebrity and pop culture obsessed. As far as Idaho goes, Boiseians are not exactly clamoring for information about the Whitney Museum. If there is a museum they are looking up on Google, it is the National Potato Museum or, perhaps, that museum with the collection of 4,500 potatoes that bear a resemblance to Richard Nixon. It is sad, but most people in this country would probably be searching for Whitney Houston rather than the Whitney Museum. We are quite focused on the wacky adventures of wayward celebrities. In fact, I am thinking about Whitney Houston right now.   I do not have to search for her because I have all my Whitney sites bookmarked. I often wonder if she will be able to get it together. I also wonder if she would like it if I change how I comb my hair. Also, why won’t she respond to my letters and emails herself? It is always her lawyer yapping about how I should ‘cease and desist.’ If she wants me to cease and desist, she should cease and desist pulling on my heartstrings with her velvety crooning. Anyhow…
As I write about these lazy assumptions I have encountered, I do not want to appear to be sitting on some moral high horse. I have spent much of my life understanding the world through the lens my own set of lazy assumptions. Most of the time, I have gotten away with it, but there have been times when these assumptions have gotten me into a large heap of trouble.
I made a blanket assumption that almost ruined my budding friendship with professional bodybuilder, Deena Barton. Deena is the reigning United States “most rippling quadriceps” champion. I met Deena at the Center City Borders book store where she was autographing copies of her newest, New Jersey Questioner Best Selling book, Legs Like Pythons. I was actually at the store shopping in the self-help section for books on how to deal with the emotional problems associated with having embarrassing foot odor. I was buying the books for a friend. I thought I was in the checkout line, but it turned out that I was in a line for getting autographs. When I got to the front of the line, I knew who she was immediately from her brilliant commentating during ESPN’s coverage of AARP Presents: National Geriatric Body Building. I was surprised when she actually knew my name. It turns out that she has the same agent as Whitney Houston, and that agent had been talking about me and showing all his clients my picture, for some reason. We chatted for a minute before she formally introduced herself and extended her hand for shaking. I refused, stating that I did not want her disgusting body builder grease to get on my expensive shirt. She was quite offended. Deena explained that female bodybuilders greasing themselves up every morning to prepare for impromptu super pose down competitions is simply a hurtful stereotype. They she started crying. It was odd, because as she cried, her over developed facial and neck muscles were rippling in unison with her sobs. I did not know what to do. I don’t handle people crying too well. So, I started crying. Then I gave her a hug. There was no discernible grease, so I felt like a fool. We ended up having coffee after she was done signing books, and she turned out to be pretty cool. I still exchange emails with Deena every now and then, though it is difficult because she is busy with her training, competitions, and television commitments while I am toiling in math graduate school and emailing Whitney Houston.
As you can see from my totally true story, lazy assumptions can hurt people. Even the hyper muscular can be effected. This is not to say that all lazy assumptions are completely false. Sometimes we make an assumption based on a personal experience which does not apply to the general situation.
I used to think all Greek girls had mustaches. I did not come up with this idea out of left field. It was rooted in a romance I carried on in my slightly younger days. I stated earlier that I have all Whitney Houston related sites bookmarked. When I do a Google search for ‘Whitney’, then, for whom am I looking? It is for Whitney Koulagrasis, a Greek girl I knew from the Greek Community Center. She had the most amazing lady-mustache. I could get lost in that thing for hours. Sometimes, we would be talking as I stared into her hirsute upper lip, and I would realize that a huge chunk of pastitsio was still lodged in its folds. I would point it out, and she would retrieve the food. She worked at the local auction house, with her many bearded coworkers. She was such a lovely young lady. However, the romance was not meant to last. I enrolled at Tulane University, and she married a wealthy Mediterranean oil baron. She never looked back. This began a pattern in my life which persists to this day. Every woman I have fancied has left me for an industrial magnate. Anyhow…
I guess my conclusion through all of this is that we need to examine our lazy assumptions. First, we should ask how they came to form in our minds. Was it from a political SPAM email or from a website? Did it come from an idea we formed in our heads from the ether to explain the harsh, confusing worlds to ourselves as children? Perhaps the idea came from a particular encounter in the past which was unwisely generalized. Once such an examination has taken place, we can get past these small minded notions and more accurately understand the world in which we live. Perhaps that South Philly store owner will realize that anybody can wear linen and enjoy the company of other linen enthusiasts at a linen party. It has nothing to do with race.