White men

I think about race and sex here probably more than I ever have before. It would make for a more salacious story if I told you that I'm mistreated, that I'm the victim of racial slurs and unwanted spanks on the ass, but that's not true. All of the men on this rig have been very polite and nice, and while they make the occasional woman-joke about me, it's said playfully.

No one's ever made a racial comment to me or around me. No one has mentioned race period. I wonder sometimes what they think of me. I wonder if any of them are closet racists. I wonder if they can even tell I'm half black, and if they would be as nice if I were dark-skinned.

I have my own prejudices. I assume that if you're a white man from the south with little education and you watch FOX News...you're probably a racist. Not Hitler-racist, but don't-date-my-daughter-racist. When I was in college my friends and I would watch FOX News on occasion out of boredom to see what the other side was saying. We would laugh about Glenn Beck's paranoid rants, or listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio and get angry, coming up with counter-arguments as if he were there. We would worry that those men were instilling fear and hatred of a changing world in people that didn't know any better.

Everyone here, all these nice people, they watch FOX News exclusively to find out about the world. I don't think I had ever met anyone that did that before. I pretend I have no opinion when I walk by a co-worker listening to Glenn Beck talk about the Obama Administration's link to the Black Panthers. I don't say anything. But I do worry, what do they think of me?

I know I shouldn't assume that these men are racist based on where they come from or which talking heads they listen to. I've never been one to assume racism when someone was rude to me or I didn't get my way, but that was in Montgomery County, Maryland - probably one of the most liberal and diverse places in the country. Now, I'm surrounded by Republican white men. And I'm out of my element.