I See What I Wanna See

Yesterday, between doctor visits we had lunch at a barbecue joint we have been tempted to try. This one was a hole-in-the-wall store-front in a shopping center. The name of it was Thompson Brothers Barbecue.

It was good.

As we sat there and ate I saw a picture on the wall of 5 young black men. All thin, very athletic looking, all perfect teeth white that were unnaturally white. Maybe their father is a dentist. They are the Thompson brothers.

One brother was in a picture by himself. He is a military pilot, standing by an airplane with his flight suit and holding his helmet.

I have no doubt that all the brothers are college graduates.

And looking from where we were sitting into the kitchen door I could see three of the brothers working away, chopping barbecue, and whatever else they had to do.

Then I thought, with their work ethic, if they were white, the place would be crowded with customers. And people would go on about how hard workers they are and good their product is. I know, not far away is Williamson Brothers Barbecue, which is exactly what happened.

I went on thinking (I get dangerous when I think) that a lot of whites would look completely through this band of neat hard-working black brothers, hardly even recognize their existence, but point at a sorry no-good black man to represent the black race for his arguments.

On the other hand, he will look through the sorry no-good white men, as if they don't exist, and pull out a hard working, known for this fair ethics, to represent the white race.

People see what they want to, and you can't get them to see otherwise.