One face of humanity

The following occurred the other week during a really shitty weekend spent at work. I drafted this post on the day it happened, but after forgetting about it for a while, have rediscovered and polished it for publication. Without a blog, it's no doubt that this pleasant memory would have been lost in the dark, troubled, abyss of my psyche, and for this reason I am happy to have continued blogging. Now for the story, continue on dear reader....

It was a mere 4 second observation, yet it was the highlight of my day and I've been pondering about it ever since.

I had just crossed a road on my way to work when I looked up and saw a tallish guy, head down, play-tackling with 2 kids, around 8 and 13 years old. Immediately I noticed that the guy was white and the kids black. The kids were laughing and having a great time. It was such an innocent playful gesture to witness that it instantly woke me from my iPod haze and made me smile. They were only a few metres away as I walked towards them.

Just as I passed them the guy broke the tackle and stood up straight. He was stunningly attractive, with short dark hair, fit, in his early 20's, and dressed simply in a tight white t-shirt and blue jeans: a poster image of a classic American boy. The kids were dressed like their favourite gangster rapper, in loose dark shirts and baggy pants, their black caps tilted. They continued to giggle and squeal as the poster-boy tickled them in the ribs.

The contrast of this strong, white, young man with the two small black children was striking. In the second that we crossed, I made eye-contact with the guy, and from the life in his eyes and smile on his face, it was clear he was genuinely having as much fun as the kids he was entertaining. That was perhaps the most surprising observation, as I would never have guessed that a guy like that would be so caring and paternal to such kids. I can only speculate about the relationship between the trio (neighbour, babysitter, step-father and sons?).

I don't know why, but the scene was deeply touching. It was a refreshing jolt after hearing the news that James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix structure and Nobel Prize winner, had publicly spouted some scientifically unproven racist remark that black people were less intelligent than whites. From what I know from people who have met him or have seen him at talks, Watson has a penchant for being sexist, racist, arrogant and generally repulsive, so it was good to hear that he resigned from a high-profile post at a leading medical research institute in California.

Anyway, what I saw on my way to work was inspiring in that there was no hint of awkward racial barriers between the guy and kids, and this helped give me some hope that humanity may one day 'evolve past' racism.

Seeing the guy and kids playing made me ponder if I have profoundly affected another person in such an anonymously brief encounter? Probably not. But then again, have you?