Sometimes, my Oreo-ness is totally validated when someone says something to me that they totally wouldn’t say to a regular black
Wondering if what's on the tip of your tongue is odd or offensive? Say it anyway! It might just be a compliment in disguise.
person (You know, like the n-word!). When someone looks at me and says something…odd or potentially off-putting about race and then stare back at me with eyes wide open and blinking sweetly, it makes me feel like I’m doing my job at making those around me forget that my ethnicity of origin.
Today’s gem came to me last night at the gym. I was in the middle of a two-hour boxing workout (20 mins of running then 20 minutes of shadow boxing then 12 minutes of jumproping then 120 pushups then 20 minutes of mitt work then 20 minutes of abs then an hour and a half of recouperative sobbing). It was the jumprope section and the girl next to me kept catching her rope with her feet and whipping herself in the back with the rope.
After a few of these began to bring up tiny red marks on her back, she turned to me and said: “Man! Now I know how the slaves felt!! That must have sucked!”
It probably did suck, I thought. But not as much as you not being able to share that with me.
I have pilates tonight. Here’s hoping someone compares the resistance band to leg irons!
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This anecdote aside, it’s inevitable that awkward stuff just slips out sometimes! What’s a convo you’ve had that still makes you blush? Let us know in the comments!
The Oreo Experience 
She could have said she knew how Christ felt. Without getting tacked to a cross and the spear in the side thing.
I’ll cop to a really unfortunate one: I compared my then-girlfriend’s looks to Summer Glau. The ex-girlfriend is Chinese. I realized later that she didn’t know who Summer Glau is, and I suspect she thought I had just done the classic fucked-up thing of thinking all Asian people look alike. WHOOPS.
We broke up soon after. I’m not saying it was related, but I definitely didn’t help myself there.
hold up, Why would she assume Summer Glau was Asian?, unless you called her “River Tam”…
Uhm..if that is really your workout, I am now officially and truly humbled. 120 push ups?! 12 minutes of shadow boxing? Good grief.
As far as embarrassing convo’s go – you know me, when is a conversation I have NOT a reason to blush?
When I was in real training 2 years ago, I could actually get through that workout without nearly passing out and being immobilized with pain the next day. I’m just now getting back into it and I can do maybe 20 pushups at moment. 🙂
follow her home, kidnap her, hold her in transport of months in a dark wet room tied to others in conditions we dont even subject to livestock. after the trip put her on a stage have people bid on her. Once sold have her work for free under a hot sun for about 12 to 15 hrs a day… (depending on how hard you can push her) then if she does find love and have children, take the kids and sell them off. (you know like we do puppies) then if feeling paticularly randy. abuse her sexually and mentally the entire time and never let her learn anything about the world around her…. and if she protest to any this treatment, tie her down and whip her until her skin breaks (bout 12 lashes should do) then she might have an idea what slaves felt…
I guess the only thing left is to have her descendants earn their freedom and reclaim their culture only to throw it all away in a shallow and futile attempt to somehow mimic and admire the very people that did those things to her. because her family is now so mentally screwed up because of the abuse she suffered. (this tends to last for hundreds of years…) then I think the process is complete…
oh btw * great workout * If I didnt know you were only doing it to warp your body into un-healthy euro – American proportions I would be almost impressed with your decipline…