Blacks I Have Known and Liked

A white friend recently challenged me to name some blacks I have liked — and to think about what that might mean. Well, here are a few.

D-Star

In my freshman year of high school, I took a theater course and was seated next to a black senior who was known as “D-Star.” Our teacher spent most of the class gleefully explaining how close to retirement he was, so there was a lot of time to kill. D-Star was friendly and treated me with a degree of respect that blacks in our school very rarely showed whites. During one particularly slow class, he sheepishly admitted that he did not understand what people meant when they said “a quarter to three” or “a quarter past one,” and asked if I could teach him. I spent the hour drawing circles divided into quadrants, and after awhile he got it — and was grateful.

As we got to know each other better, I learned that he was a crack dealer. I asked how he ended up doing that, and he told me it was because the only jobs in his neighborhood were at fast food joints. He had worked at a White Castle for a few months, but hated it. It was easy to burn yourself on the machines, and he could never get rid of the smell of onions no matter how often he showered or washed. Worst of all, if you don’t get along with someone you work with, there is no escape. The two of you are stuck in a little kitchen for the entire shift, and you are sure to bump into the guy dozens of times.

So he quit and started selling crack. In a way, D-Star’s reasoning makes sense. I have never had to work at a fast food place, but I doubt his description of the situation is inaccurate. What became of D-Star, I do not know. But I remember him fondly, and would be glad to see him again.

K-Lo

One of my jobs in high school was at a seedy video store, and it was there that I met K-Lo. He was an ex-con twice over, and his job at the store was the first taxable employment he ever had. A legal job had been a requirement for probation the second time he was let out, and he applied at this video store because he had been a loyal customer for years and was friendly with the owner. The owner was an ex-con himself, and hired K-Lo out of a sense of ex-con solidarity.

K-Lo was a hilarious guy, and great to work with. He was always cracking jokes, always shared his lunch, and was merciless with shoplifters. However, he was also a hardened criminal. There seemed to be no crime he was unwilling to commit: burglary, mugging, drug dealing, and pimping were all part of his stock in trade. I was sad when he went to prison for the third time, and felt sorry for his family. I never figured out exactly what he was charged with, but I am 100 percent certain he was guilty.

Big Mike

When that video store closed, I went on to work at a smut shop. One of the guys I worked with most often was Big Mike. He was a nice guy, and not nearly as lazy as most blacks I have worked with. Another point to his credit was that he did not throw a fit when I told him in no uncertain terms that while I was working, we would not be playing any interracial porn on the TVs hanging from the ceiling. He respected me for putting my foot down on that — and how vehement I was about it.

When business was slow, we talked amicably about music, girls, and every now and again, politics. He was a big fan of Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, and held Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama in low regard. Though Big Mike was a tough guy from the ghetto, on some level, he was a just a nerd whose biggest interests were in the humanities. Two years ago, I swung by the shop and asked about him, but nobody could remember where he had landed after he quit.

What does this mean?

Not much, really. These three guys were all nice to me, and I enjoyed their company, but each also embodied plenty of negative traits blacks tend to have. While on some level, D-Star’s reasoning about the desirability of certain professions was sound, at the end of the day he still sold a horrible, destructive drug, and mostly to his own people. I recall that his younger sister was once beaten to a pulp by rival dealers. He was good company in that theater class, but he was not a credit to his people or to society.

The same is true of K-Lo. A fun guy, but without a doubt a net negative.

While Big Mike was not hurting other people, he was not very functional. In his mid-20s, he was working at a smut shop and smoking marijuana all the time. He blew money carelessly too, often ordering loads of expensive takeout when he was at work. Once, I pointed out that buying 50 dollars worth of food during an eight hour shift when he was making ten dollars an hour seemed unwise. He told me he didn’t care.

Sure, I got along with all three. But none did anything to make me think their race’s average intelligence was on par with that of whites, or that the criminal impulses of blacks are overstated. My experiences with D-Star, K-Lo, and Big Mike in no way make me think the United States (or any other country) should increase its black population through immigration. Nor do these experiences make me think integration is a moral good, or that “we can all just get along.”

Race is real, and so are averages. No number of pleasant experiences can change that.