Anti-Bias Like Me

I have just spent seven hours at an anti-bias workshop, examining my deep-seated, unidentified racial and cultural issues, and I've come away with a revelation about myself:

I totally need to get a black friend.

Yeah, well, there is Wade, my original black friend but he's been ducking me lately. He never responds to my posts on Facebook and the last time I saw him in the dairy section at Safeway, he said he was in a hurry but then I saw him taking his sweet time in the produce aisle. What the fuck? I think Wade might be an anti-Semite. I am going to recommend he go to this workshop I went to and get himself some anti bias so he will be more attentive to me.

However, maybe anti-bias workshops don't have the same affect on black people as they do on white people. Do African Americans walk out of them thinking, "I have really got to befriend a white, middle-aged Jewish woman" ? I wish.

But if so, I would like to let them know that I am available. I am not going to wait around forever for you, Wade. Even though you do possess everything I'd ever want from a black friend: you shave your head, you're from Detroit, and you think I'm funny. 

I am up to quota on gay men and lesbians, but thank you for your inquiries.

Also I have a friend who is a witch. And a bunch who are Communists. And one who has a friend who is in a carpool with a Muslim co-worker. So I've pretty much aced the category of diversity. Except for Wade.

Fuck.

I really need to get this done soon because the anti-bias workshop lady is coming back in six months for a follow-up session and I don't think that showing her my six Republican Facebook friends is gonna cut it. Plus, I kinda do have a bias against them.

I am going to fail anti-bias. It will be the first "F" I've ever gotten unless you count when I failed Algebra One on purpose because Tom Stern was failing it and I wanted to be in the same class with him for another year. Only, joke on me because it turned out that from then on I was put in all the remedial math classes with names like, "Adventures in Numbers" with kids who didn't appreciate my witty bon mots and repeatedly threw my notebook out the window, while Tom Stern was moved up to Algebra Two mid semester and - I've heard - is a successful doctor today.

It's really a shame Dr. Stern is not African American because I would totally track him down and guilt him into befriending me. Oh wait. I think he was half-Jewish. Therefore, half immune to my guilt. Damn it all. Tom Stern, you are of no use to me at all. Although maybe you could write me a refill for Xanax...I am so very stressed. You know, because of finding out I am not perfect at anti-bias and all. 

Which is all Wade's fault.

And that's what I learned today at the workshop.