The Racist who Helped Transform Me

The last time I let a racist speak his addled mind in front of me
and did nothing about it was also the last time I could see straight.
It's no coincidence, I'm sure now. I was hell bent on getting
a bag of pot, and this white-trash delinquent was the only guy I knew
who knew a guy. As we drove in my truck to the designated place,
my crack-head cohort spouted out some racist drivel, which I
promptly ignored. He stopped at some point and asked, "I guess you
don't agree?" "No, I don't," I said. Didn't stop the truck, didn't kick
his sorry ass out or tell him to fuck off the way I should have. I just
kept driving, mind focused on the toke I would be taking in a matter
of only minutes. I couldn't picture any kinks in the plan between
where we were on the road and my temporary bliss. But when
a person ignores their own most heart-felt principles, a person turns a
blind eye to everything that matters--and there's just no telling what
could happen. Racing home after the deal, we met a jam on
the freeway. Sitting there, stopped dead, I did, in fact, catch a glimpse,
in my rearview, of my fate speeding along the fast lane toward us.
I looked ahead again, after noticing the approaching speed demon,
and seconds later, it was clear that the driver of this impending, fate-
bearing vehicle hadn't noticed that the line of cars ahead of him,
the line I was at the back of, was not actually moving, was stopped
dead, failed to notice despite all our brake lights and lack of motion.
My truck was totaled, and so was my life. I mean, I'm still living,
of course, but, like I said, I only have vague recollections of what
it's like to see straight. Sometimes, the only thing that can help
a person step away from indifference and cowardliness, from inaction
and internalized loathing, is being forced outside their own bodies and
minds, forced to look inside for the first time. Maybe I can't see
the outside world so well anymore, but inside, it's crystal clear. And I
really don't think a soul would ever dream of being a racist in front of me
anymore. I don't even need to voice my convictions. I am my convictions
just as I embody the result of all the ill notions I once allowed for, and
embody the results of a war which has ended in me. Me today. Here. Now.
Partly broken, but, notably, burning brighter just by the fire of the process.

(2006)