I was just at Best Buy doing some last minute gift searching and there was a woman buying a camera for one of her family members and she was trying to choose all the accessories. When asked if she needed a carrying case she told the associate:
No, you know how black people put stuff in a Crown Royale bag? That’s what I’m going to do. You know people put dice or trinkets in there.
I smiled because I knew exactly what she was talking about. She turns to me,
You know what I mean, don’t you? Where you from?
I explained I was from Southern Indiana by Louisville, Kentucky and that here were always Crown Royale billboards at home. The whole economy down there is built on pot, liquor, tobacco and gambling. She joked:
You’ve been hanging around black people too long!
She’d grown up in Tennessee so we swapped stories about the Jack Daniel’s distillery.
Actually I haven’t been hanging around black people consistently in a long time – if ever. And I feel like I’m supposed to feel awful about that. That I need to making the effort to appease some unseen watchdog that I’m not being integrated enough. I feel awkward even writing that.
It all just sounded like something my extended family might do – 1) drink liquor that comes in a velvet bag and 2) use that bag to carry stuff (like Dungeons & Dragons dice, perhaps).
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