You Never Know Who'll You'll Meet...

I meet the nicest racist ever the other day!

Well let me ask a question first...if people are saying nice things about you that are derived from racial biases...is that still racism?

Let me explain myself and then I'll ask again and you can tell me what you think!

During my internship I was working with a client...a 70 year old white lady...who was very nice...while working with her to get her into a comfort zone (seeing as I'm a 6'3" black man with a considerable amount of tattoos) I decided to spark up a conversation about life in general hoping that we would have something in common that we could discuss extensively! We found a few things and it kept the convo going for the 3 hours that we had together!

Our topics were as follows:

1. As most of my clients do she asked me when would I be done with school and I explained to her the amount of time that I had left and how it was longer than some others because I was in the night class due to the fact that I have a fulltime job, which, inevitably leads all clients to ask what do you do? When I inform them that I'm a Personal Trainer and I am the Fitness & Wellness Coordinator for the City majority of my clients try to get free fitness and/or nutrition advice....but this one client was a bit different...
She started out telling me that she was 70 and had just started working out with a trainer in her town (she was visiting San Antonio) and that she was really enjoying it (normal enough thus far) then she asked me how to get rid of her stomach (still normal...) to which I told here that a flat tummy is all 15% ab exercises...85% cardio (here's a tip folks: you can do crunches by the thousands and have the strongest sexiest abs in the world and they could be hiding under a mountain of fat...it's like letting the drunk fat frat boy go buy the beer and he passes out on the law on top of it...could've been the best 6 pack ever...but you'll never see it!)

If your laughing now that's good she was as well which meant that she was feeling easy and relaxed and I could do my job. But, this is where it started to get interesting...she began to comment on my build and how I was in good shape to which I said thank you! (I don't think that too many people would ask for my help if I was an out of shape trainer) She asked me what I do to stay so trim and I informed her that I was do mostly body weight training, play basketball alot, and eat well but it helps that I have a really high metabolism!

And, her response was...get ready...get ready..."I think it's because your black!" "All you black guys seem to have great metabolisms...the woman...well...not so much...but you men...yeah...I think it's because you're so tall and muscular!"

Ummm...well...silence...

Maybe that one was my fault...I kind of set her up with the "I play alot of basketball comment!"

2. OK, 2nd time's a charm (is that right?) So, the silence from the last convo filled the room but wasn't too uncomfortable. I used the down time to think of something less abrasive and more politically correct.

KIDS! Right? Wrong!

I don't remember exactly how but, I broached the topic of kids...and she had 3 kids just like me but raised me 8 grand kids! But, her having a few grand kids around my kids ages brought about some good conversation!

That was of course until she decide to ask me, "what my kids were?"

I personally was stomped by this question originally, therefore my response was along the lines of "what, huh, you mean like 2 boys and a girl?"

To which she refusing to be deterred, promptly responded "Well, yeah but...WHAT are they?"

Finally fully understanding her and totally bewildered at the fact that she asked me this I stammered out a, "well my wife is half Puerto Rican!"

Which apparently really excited her because she didn't even let me finish before she shouted out, " Oh I just know that they are beautiful...those mixed babies are always the most gorgeous things in the world!!!!!"

Ummm....welll...uhhh...thanks!

3. We had some more random conversation about life and whatnot...but at some point it kind of just died out! After about 20 minutes of silence she chose to revive it with this dozy: "So...you're an Obama fan, huh?"

I was truly thrown with the this one...the shear audacity of this woman to assume that I would a supporter of the black president simply because I was a black man left me speechless! What if I was black republican? What if I was a political atheist? and Anarchist even?

I thought long and hard about how I should answer (should I say hell no I voted for McCain! Should I asked her if she asked me simple because I was a black man..figuring that my race outweighs my political views?) and I responded well yes I voted for him and I think he's done a good job of uniting people thus far, everyone has fans as well as foes though so, I'll reserve my judgement until 2012 as to whether he was a good president or not! And you?

She smoothly told me that she was an true American so she supports whomever may be in office!

So, now that I've given you the entire story I'll ask again...if people are saying nice things about you that are derived from racial biases...is that still racism?

It's Finally Here!!!!!

That's right...

You guessed it...

Pop Warner Football practice starts today!!!!!

I haven't been this excited since that last pregnancy test came back negative!!!!

My son's already in game mode...he opted out of going to summer camp today because he didn't want to be tired when it wastime to go to practice. I was glad to see that he got his priorities in order. for the rest of this month...well at least until the 24th when school starts...it's eat, sleep, football...shower...repeat!

He has practice Monday thruough Friday until school starts!

And the benefit for us is that he will be so tired that he'll want to eat dinner and go to bed ASAP! I can wait!!!!

In honor of this upcoming season:



I'll try my best to possibly avoid this maybe happening at all or in part...