One Night In Baltimore

Baltimore is an interesting and dynamic city.  It is also a dangerous city.  One can wander just a few blocks off center and find themselves in communities of extreme poverty, communities that are mostly black, and communities where people will fix your car if it breaks down on their street and then drive it away. There was a TV drama show called "The Wire" about crime and the drug trafficking in the city of Baltimore which got positive critical review for its honesty and acting.  It was dark and gritty and the kind of thing us white folks in our safe little homes watch with interest as we might watch a train wreck or analyze cultural diversity.

All of the ugly racism which has crawled out from under our dirty beds and is being displayed on Facebook, Twitter and talking head news shows brought back a memory of something that happened to me a few years ago in Baltimore.  It was a very short incident, and had the city and the character types been different, it would not even be a memory.  I searched to see if I had written about this before, but could not find a related post.

The time of year was August.  Hot town summer in the city.  My husband and I had taken this lengthy drive to celebrate an anniversary.  He was taking me to a favorite fancy restaurant in this town.  I was dressed up more than usual and had shiny swinging earrings and more make up on than I normally wear and was in a dress-up mood.  We had been ignored by our kids for the better part of the summer, and as a reassurance, we were purposely going to celebrate the end of the summer like we used to so many years ago.

We were driving on a brightly lit street downtown in a main tourist area of the city where the weekend evening traffic was picking up.  We came to a red light and hubby stopped the car.  I glanced over to my right at the car next to me.  Inside were four twenty-something black men.  Their hair was in crazy shiny dreadlocks and one had gold earrings and their heads were bobbing back and forth to some music I could not hear.  One of the men said something funny and they all threw back their heads in laughter, their brilliant white teeth like tiny flashlights against their dark black skin in the dark car.  They were having a really good time.

I instinctively broke into a broad smile perhaps feeling glad that others were also in a good mood on this evening.  (Perhaps in the back of my mind hidden way deep somewhere, I realized they might be drug gang members and carrying guns inside or high on cocaine or ecstasy, but this thought did not surface to the front of my mind.)

The driver instinctively turned mid-laugh to look at me.  Our eyes connected for one of those seconds that seen to last for ten as we both sat just a few feet from each other, our proximity almost creating a personal space.  The whites of his eyes were as bright as his teeth.  He clearly saw my smile but I could see he was registering my race, my age and my attitude and so many other things in that second and evaluating me and what I had seen.  I did not stop smiling and since my smile was not some fear-filled reaction but a true feeling of enjoyment at their fun, he suddenly grinned an even bigger grin and tilted his head to me in greeting as the light changed and we both pulled away, hubby making a left turn and the car filled with black young men driving on.

I have no idea what I am trying to convey by writing about this incident.  I am not saying I am some sweet person who can see the good in all and help change the world with a smile (although why not?), or that drug dealers are balanced folks and just need the reasonable smile of some old white lady, or that black men with dreadlocks and earrings and nice cars are even always drug dealers!  Maybe they were Ravens players!  Maybe they were DJ's heading to a wedding?

I guess I am just saying that I wished the world was always like this.  Nonjudgmental and gracious and ending with peaceful departures.