Thurs­day evening I was dri­ving to Kit’s house to pick up Ellen for a short night before St. Louis. While I was wait­ing at a light in Wilkins­burg, there were some teens walk­ing  the side­walk shout­ing. Groups of teens are loud by default. I ignored them. But they started shout­ing louder and repeat­ing them­selves, so I started lis­ten­ing. “White cracker piece of shit! Hey, white cracker piece of SHIT!” I looked around for their tar­get, think­ing I might see a mug­ging. Then one of them approached my win­dow and start­ing bang­ing his fist. “HEY! Mother fuckin’ white cracker piece … of … SHIT!” Bang bang bang. I looked out at him into his brown eyes, the dark brown frown. Half amused, I leaned to the win­dow and tipped my head, offer­ing a lit­tle smile and a lit­tle wave. Hi formed on my lips as I inno­cently and silently inquired, what can I do for you? The light turned green. I con­tin­ued down the road. I’m white. Peo­ple see me as white. Every­one does. Every­one except white peo­ple. To white peo­ple, or white pee wee soc­cer play­mates, I’m wussy brownie boy. These names are inked in the shades of my skin.