Restored from Last Saved Draft.

[sarren]

They leave Bruce in Philadelphia.

It's necessary. At least that's what Johnny tells himself, when he walks away from the one man who'd never let him down since he returned to the land of the upright. And Bruce is needed in Boston, sorely needed, at a time when everyone with medical training is precious to the survivors.

But it isn't that, because there are survivors everywhere. In reality, they leave Bruce because even in the midst of everything else, white men traveling with a black man stand out. They catch in the mind, in the memory. And they can very ill afford to be remembered. It doesn't matter that Bruce would have shaved his dreadlocks. His skin, in this America as always, is the most important thing about him to too many people who see him.

- from 'Afraid of Americans' by RivkaT



So I was reading this fic yesterday and I had a question for the Americans on my flist, but then mynxii rang and suddenly I had to contact people urgently quickly about lifts and I didn't have phone numbers and my computer randomly switched itself off (it does that if I like, nudge it, or look at it wrong) and then I had to go out.

I'd completely forgotton about it, but it's back, so I thought I'd ask, is it really that segregated? *points to fic*

Comments

Re: two parts, because i can't shut up con't

[sarren.livejournal.com]

No, seriously i want to know. Please talk about it as much as you want.

Seriously it was only about six years ago that I realised that America wasn't like The Cosby Show, and all those movies where all the (of course) white main characters have best friends/partners etc who are of a different race. It just never occurred to me.

Re: two parts, because i can't shut up con't

[vegetariansushi.livejournal.com]

I mean, don't get me wrong -- sometimes people do have best friends of a different race. But it's one, not terribly common; two, likely to draw a lot of funny looks; and three, likely to cause problems for at least one in the friendship. Some black kids will get told off by their friends or families for 'trying to act white', or for getting too close to the enemy. White kids are told that they're jeopardising their chances, that they're slumming it, that they're trying to act black or be something that they're not. In some areas, being seen with someone of a different race is a lot like being seen kissing someone of the same sex -- likely to draw taunts at best, get you beat pretty bad at worst.