So, sometimes I can be pretty brash if it's for someone else. A friend and I went to DC for a conference and we were at a hotel near Dupont Circle. She was so disappointed when we went out to dinner because she didn't see many Black people.
https://twitter.com/phidesign/status/1350188210471788544
As a Black woman from Portland, she was eager to, for once in her life, be in the majority, among lots of Black people. Well, that was not going to happen at the hotel or Dupont Circle so I said, come on, let's eat somewhere else. We caught a cab and
I asked the driver, who was Black, to take us where the Black people are. I explained we were from Portland and my friend has never been to a place where there were mostly Black people, so could he help. So he took us to another neighborhood and dropped us at a cafe.
I didn't take a census, but I think I was the only non-Black person in the cafe. And to be honest, I did feel out of place, as though people might feel suddenly chaperoned, not as free to be themselves, but my friend loved it and so we did more of the same while we were there.
A guard at the Smithsonian recommended we try lunch at a Baptist church "soup kitchen" where they served ribs and all sorts of soul food on a sliding scale, so we went there for lunch and paid full price (of course) and had a delicious meal.
My friend so loved being among a community that was mostly Black that when we went back to Oregon after the conference, she was dissatisfied and moved away to another majority Black city. She was one of my best friends and I miss her but we talk frequently and she is much happier
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