When I was a teacher, race was on my list of topics to stay away from in class. Too touchy, too easy to be misunderstood, too risky for a junior faculty member who wanted to get tenure! I figured only black men and women could talk honestly about race and not get into trouble. Now that I'm out of academics, I can actually think freely. So in a book I wrote after I didn't have to worry about tenure any more, I wrote a chapter on race and states' rights. It turned out to be a good piece, and no one has attacked me for it yet.

Yesterday I picked up a black gentleman I've been working with at the railway station. He has family in both the United States and St. Thomas. He just graduated this spring with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. He had just taken his seat in the passenger side of the station wagon when I saw a big, kind of mean looking guy with a frown on his face striding toward the car. He came from the station house, where my friend had just been. I could tell he didn't intend to be polite. I thought he was going to tell me to get out of the parking space I was in. Instead, he looked hard at my friend and said:

"Next time I'll be happy if you flush the toilet."

"I did flush the toilet," my friend replied.

"No you didn't. I can tell because when the toilet flushes the water in the sink goes down."

With that he turned around and walked back to the station house.

Now, my first reaction to this exchange was to think about who might be right in this quick dispute. The fellow from the station certainly seemed sure of himself. Later on that day I reflected that who was right didn't matter. I asked, "Would someone have followed me all the way out to the parking lot and said something like that to me?" I've had people be rude to me before, but about flushing the toilet?

Nope, I had to see that this enforcement effort was part of the treatment blacks get when they travel to the white suburbs. I've heard so many stories about the small indignities black people experience when they deal with whites who regard them as intruders. Bad experiences with the police get publicized, but this instance reminds me that these uncomfortable encounters unfold in many settings. "If I have to let you use my facilities," the fellow thinks, "I'm going to find some way to let you know that I don't like it." Nope, I don't think I would have received a warning about flushing the toilet from someone who didn't see the water in the sink go down. Who even watches for something like that unless he wants to find a reason to get the guy? He might as well have added, "I didn't even check the toilet itself, because what I really wanted to do was let you know you're not welcome here."

Next time, Breaker Morant.