REPORTER: "I've got to go to Louisiana next week for a story. Do I need to get malaria shots?" (She wasn't kidding, either.)
# # #
REPORTER: "All this patriotism crap scares me. It's just going to give all the rednecks an excuse to rub the flag in our faces." (Overheard on Sept. 17, my first day back at work after the terrorist attacks.)
# # #
(After a lunch date with a black reporter and his sullen girlfriend. Both are of a middle-class background.)
ME: "Your girlfriend's kind of a quiet one, huh?"
BLACK REPORTER: "No, she just has problems with white males." (Offered matter-of-factly, with no sense that such a position might be a little troubling to the white male he just dined with.)
ME: "Oh ... Any reason? I mean, I don't mean to pry, but did something bad happen to her personally in junior high or something?"
BLACK REPORTER: "No. She was just a history major in college, so she learned a lot about how racist this society is." (Delivered in same, matter-of-fact monotone.)
ME: "Oh."
(Long, nervous silence as I ponder whether to raise some objections, and whether raising said objections would only serve to label me as a racist in a workplace where said black reporter was one of our black publisher's pets.)
ME: "Uh, OK. I'll see you later."
More updates will be posted as they come back to me.
