Coming home from the game.........

Japan.......Japan........Japan. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I understand that I am a little bit bigger (height wise) than everybody else. Not being racist or stereotypical, just an observation but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to assault people as I walk by. A funny thing happened to me as I was coming back from a Tokyo Apache basketball game at Ariake arena..........I rode the train back from the game with my friend and her daughter and we were having an intelligent conversation about life and they way that people view us. I got off at my stop, Ebisu station, and decided to walk home but the cold weather made me change my mind. I was wearing a sweater, some nicely pressed jeans and my Banana Republic suede coat. I wasn’t looking like I was going to mug someone at all. My “mugging” clothes are in the washer. So, anyway, as I was walking to the bus station, there was a lady in front of me talking on her phone, just chatting away. I guess she turned around because her burglar alarm went off in her head and she saw me and the look of surprise and fear in her face............PRICELESS!!!!!

I wish I had a camera for that instant so I could have taken her picture. So as soon as she saw me, she stopped walking and ran to her right across the street and continued to talk but in front of a light pole. Almost as if she were thinking if I stay on the phone and run to a lighted area I won’t get my purse stolen and raped by this large and dangerous black person because that’s what it said to do on TV. I couldn’t do anything but laugh. A hearty laugh at that because at the time all I could thing about was how cold it was outside and turning on my heater when I got home. That lady on her phone was the furthest thing from my mind at that point so much so that I didn’t even notice her until she was in looking at me in fear. After she did her best Usain Bolt impression to the other side of the street I was left wondering what I did or what I was wearing that might have scared her off like that or if I had been anything other than a BIG BLACK MAN would she have been just as scared. Shaking my head and laughing I headed to the bus stop and proceeded to wait. Because it was so cold it seemed like I waited for hours and finally the 87 bus showed up. THANK GOD the bus has heat because I was going to freeze my C.O. Jones’s (inside joke) off if the bus had come any later. . I was the first one on the bus and there happen to be one seat open. In Japan if there are no seats on the bus people stand, sometimes uncomfortably close to you. As I looked up to see what was the next bus stop, guess who I saw…………………Yep you guessed it, Ms. Usain Bolt herself. I was thinking of a couple of things that I could have done:

1. Be very quiet until my stop and as I was getting off, quickly get behind her and yell “BOO”, then run off the bus!

2. Sing the “I got this seat and you didn’t!!!!!” song but because I don’t know the words in Japanese, the message would be lost.

3. As I got off the bus I could have actually mugged her so that her fear would have been rewarded so to speak.

OR

4. Or just give her the seat and show her that not all black people need to be feared, some of us just want to catch the bus and get home.

After carefully pondering my four possibilities I decided to go the only option that would not reinforced a stereotype or fear already in this ladies head. I stood up and with a polite DOZO and a smile, I gave her my seat. She smile back and sat down. I got off two stops later and as I was walking home I hoped that her fear had gone away a little and that the next time she saw a black person walking behind her on the street she wouldn’t make it so obvious that she was scared for her life. Who knows…………….maybe next time she’ll walk across the street instead of run!!!!!!