Beam in my Eye

This little tale happened this past December. I was in the cafeteria with a friend and it was very crowded. Right next to us, there were two black men talking. They were dressed simply if a little carelessly and had broad southern accents. At first, I didn't hear what they were talking about. I felt irritated, we were studying for an exam and we were students at the school. these two guys were clearly not from our school and they didn't look like faculty. My internal reaction was high handed, snobbish, contemptuous.

Then I began to hear what they were talking about. They were discussing African literature, the consciousness of this in the literature from diaspora and the roots of African American cultures and the emergence of this into current behavioral trends. I can't tell you how amazing it was to listen. They were energetic and invested in the topic and there is nothing more fascinating than to listen to a person truly passionate about his subject. I had my accounting finals in 3 hours time and I tell you I stopped studying for a full half an hour to listen to their conversation.

I am so ashamed of myself. Is this racism? Was I being racist in my initial assessment of these two men? In a cafeteria of tired exam weary students, I assure you, theirs was likely to be the most intelligent conversation. But I started with such unnecessary and biased judgements. Here is the beam in my eye. It's frightening and I am scared but I have to ask myself this question. Could it be that I saw two outsiders who were black in my cafeteria and I felt something akin to superiority? That is an ugly ugly question and I don't know how to answer it. What I do know is that I was the fool, I was studying something as stupid as accounting (ugh) and they were fabulous conversationalists, genuine thinkers and definitely intelligentsia (probably faculty or graduate students from the divinity school or from the arts). 

I am so horrible. I swear to myself that I will be aware of this tendency and work hard to overcome it.