The Old Blog in the Desert

One of the women that I work with, and who sits behind me, was giggling through much of our shift. Near the end of our workday, she began outright laughing.

You must know this: she self-describes as a ‘Black person.’ I self-describe as ‘pasty.’

“What are you laughing about?” I had asked.

She pointed to her earphones and continued laughing, before finally answering, “Eddie Griffin — he’s killing me!”

She turned back and laughed some more. By this time she had the entire room chuckling because she is generally so quiet and unassuming.

Then she looked back at me and said aloud, “I love racist jokes!”

Nearly everyone fell about with laughter of their own. Her honesty caught many off guard and that made it even funnier.

I responded, laughingly, “Why, so do I!”

Another woman, also Black, sitting across from the laughing woman looked directly at me and stated flatly: “Oh, I bet you do!”

While smiling at her, I began laughing like Eddie Murphy from ‘Beverly Hills Cop.’ As she looked away, laughter erupted.

Our supervisor, who was also laughing, eventually had to to tell everybody to settle down.