Had an experience that stunned and saddened me. I was dropping off a friend at the city train station, and was turning a street corner with a car behind me and a car coming towards me.

A man, who I believe was talking to someone in another car turns around and notices me turning onto the street that he is on starts to talk to me…

He said, “I’m sorry that I’m black, but I…”

I couldn’t catch the rest of his rehearsed speech as I trying to avoid some traffic collisions (and him as well) and couldn’t have safely stopped, but his words just kept pounding in my head.

Why would anyone apologize for being black? Or any other particular race, culture or whatever. While you can’t change things like that, why would you want to?

I didn’t think less of him because he was black … that label didn’t even register. However, I did pin him with the label of “homeless,” and while I often drop a few coins to those who ask, I didn’t turn around because I didn’t want to reward him for his speech.

Sure, I guess we could say that I pay people for their well-rehearsed begging speeches, and the better the speech, the more their customers pay. Granted, I pay mostly based on my mood and the amount of change in my pocket.

I’m sure there is an art to this verbal form of a begging bowl. Can’t be too long, must be to the point. Can’t be too exaggerated, but must be intriguing…

Of course I know that they are buying alcohol instead of the promised sandwich or bus ticket, and that is fine with me. Sure alcohol isn’t going to fill the void, but it sure is better than the hell they are living in. As Kahlil Gibran said:

And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, “Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.”

So many difficult problems to solve, and my best solution is just to not have any problems myself.