A Little Stealing

The police officer was sent to the home to resolve a domestic dispute.  The officer sat with the three people in the dispute at a round kitchen table.  "So she's your wife and you're accusing her of wanting to steal?" the officer asked the husband.
"It's a small matter," the wife spoke up before her husband could answer.
"But stealing is against the law," the officer said.
"I want her to be black -- that's why I married her," the husband said.
"I told him that I'm 'dentified as black on foodstamp records and if he and I separate it's gonna be confusion if I go down there saying um white.  I jes wanna steal a little white 'cause he's white and if we s'pose to be united as one 'cause he's my husband --"
"Me too."
The officer blinked.  "You're her husband, too?"
"No, um her brother, and his brother-in-law, so um family and wanna be jes lak they is --"
"See, officer, how they speak English -- just like uneducated slaves did.  I think it's so quaint -- I just love it.  Makes me feel like I'm helping slaves . . . and the way they talk is contagious."
The officer stared at the husband.  "Are you okay?" he asked him.
"Of course," the husband said.
"You don't hear people in cotton fields singing 'Kumbaya' as cotton sacks float toward heaven playing violins, do you?"
"Of course not."
"One more question.  He hesitated.  "How do you identify yourself?"
"Oh, I'm white, but --"
"Thank God," the officer said.  For a minute I thought I was all alone here."
" -- but at this moment I wanna start this New Year right.  I'm now thinking --"
"Oh, Lord, here we go," the officer said, throwing his head back, rolling his eyes upwards.
" -- I'm now thinking, just to keep up, I might need to steal a little 'black.' ''
The officer threw his head back again, rolling his eyes upward, thinking, I'll retire in 3 months -- "Listen," he said, "Why don't ya'll think this over for about 3 months, then get back to me."
"Okay," the husband, wife, and brother-in-law said in unison.
Have mercy on us, Lord, the officer thought, whomever -- or whoever -- we is . . . .