JUST LIKE YOU

Dear Spike:

A man I knew came home from the war in Iraq just in time for the birth of his son. Except that when the boy came out, he looked remarkably like the man’s best friend — the white man’s black best friend.

“Our baby isn’t going to come out a different color than me, is she?” I asked your mom in jest a few days ago.

“Don’t be silly, honey,” she said, not even looking up from what she was doing. “All your best friends are white, just like you.”

•••

She’s joking (I hope) but she’s also right about that. Most of my closest friends are indeed white, like I am (and I am assuming you will be as well.) For while we live in the most diverse city in the state of Utah, it is still... well... the state of Utah.

There are exactly two exceptions — my friends Sheena and Chhun are Indian and Cambodian, respectively. I know it’s not always easy for them being wheat bread in a white bread bakery. For Sheena, especially, things can be particularly tough.

“Just try finding a date in Utah when you’re brown, overweight and not a Mormon,” she told me once. “You’re more likely to get eaten by a Great White Shark in the Great Salt Lake.”

•••

Sometimes I wonder why they stay here.

Take Monday, for example. Chhun’s car was stolen, then found by the police and towed to the impound lot over on the west side.

When we got to the lot, the man behind the window — a big redneck fellow with a long mustache and buzz cut hair — asked Chhun to sign a document saying he’d inspected the car for damages.

Except Chhun hadn’t even seen the car yet.

The man seemed frustrated as Chhun reread the paper.

“Can’t you speak English?” he demanded.

“Yes, I can,” Chhun replied.

“Well, then sign it.”

“But I haven’t seen my car.”

“You’re going to see the car eventually. Just sign the paper.”

Chhun, who has a bit of a stutter even when he’s not nervous, looked flustered. He looked up at the man, then down at the paper. He looked like a kid who was about to give his lunch money to a schoolyard bully.

•••

My argument wasn’t any more reasonable than Chhun’s had been, but low and behold, the guy behind the window actually listened to me.

“He’s not going to sign something that says he’s seen his car until he’s seen his car,” I said.

“Oh... well...” The man seemed embarrassed. “You know I didn’t mean anything by all that. We can go see the car together.”

Gee, white man to the rescue.

•••

I’m not sure I did Chhun any favors by sticking up for him. It wasn’t really my place to butt in and, in fact, I may have been playing into to the same belittling racial stereotypes as the man behind the window.

I’ve been playing it over in my head. Why don’t I think Chhun can stick up for himself? Did I step in because I discerned that he needed help by reading his body language, or did I step in because I decided he needed help because he’s not white?

Damn.

•••

Race can be funny, intriguing and beautiful. It can also be ignorant, wrathful and ugly.

Most of the time, it won’t be any of those things. Most of the time, when you look at your friends, all you’re going to see is your friends.

But color exists. And sometimes it matters. And sometimes, without even intending to, you’ll find out it matters to you. Ignore that, and you’ll find out that it matters more than you think.

But embrace it, examine it, acknowledge it, and you’ll find out it doesn’t matter at all.

•••

As a matter of fact, that’s the case with pretty much everything we use to separate ourselves from one another.

White and black. Gay and straight. Christian and Jew and Mormon and Muslim.

I’m racking my brain to think of a single time in which any of that might matter.

And I can only think of one: White guy, black best friend, black baby.

And even then, the guy who I heard that story from — the one whose wife got pregnant with another man’s kid while he was away at war — he wasn’t upset that a black man had impregnated his wife. He was upset that his best friend had.

Love,
dad