WHOA!

[schlomo]

Whoa!

While waiting for the bus yesterday, I saw an elderly African-American man performing some strange ritual on the corner across the street. Entranced, all dressed in white, he bent over and intently and repeatedly swished a branch over a wide swath of the sidewalk. When he was done, he spent some time locating other items to enact the same ritual: scraps of paper, a cup, a piece of cloth, and part of a bicycle tire. What was his purpose? Some sort of purification, an exorcism, a blessing, a curse, a sacred stay against confusion? Or perhaps nothing more than a demented theatrical display? I could only speculate. But there was no doubt that this man (or shaman) was ardently devoted to his task, whatever its meaning.

A few people walking past him did a double take. One of them sneered; another one gaped; but the man, oblivious to their reactions, continued his all-consuming ritual. When I got on the bus, I noticed that the man had moved into a park filled with homeless guys who befriended him. Ah, humanity!

[WebWiseWoman]

Humanity at its best at the end...

But have to ask, why is the gentleman's assumed ethnicity important (also consider he could be Jamaican or Ethiopian, or any Asian nationality)?

This is why I'm losing my care for other humans, because someone always needs to include ethnicity. Will this never stop?

Sad to me...

#StaySafe

[schlomo]

You are right. Unless the man's ethnicity (whatever it actually was) factored into his ritual (knowledge that I obviously didn't have), I should have omitted what I perceived to be his race. Your comments are always instructive. Keep me honest--my wife has been doing so for 52 years.