Unseen Side Streets

"May I help you, sir?"
"Madam, I wanna change my race."
"What is your race, sir?"
"Confusion."
"Why is it called that, sir?"
"Before I was born they had this race picked out for me and they didn't know whether I wanted to be in this race or not.  Started off calling me 'Negro,' then years later said I was 'colored', and years after that said I was 'Afrikan American' or 'black' --"
"So what's  your problem, sir?"
"What's my problem?  If half the time I don't know who I is how people 'spect me to act?  Most the time I be quiet, but all of a sudden I start doing crazy stuff, knocking people down in the street -- and these people ain' done nothing to me, I don' even know them . . ."
"Well, in large cities we get a variety . . ."
"But then I start marching through the streets with some crazy-acting people and we's screaming 'Off the police,' and we rioting, setting fires and lootin' stores . . ."
"That shouldn't surprise you, especially if a Mayor says that it's nothing but property and tells the police not to interfere with you . . ."

"But it gets worse. Somebody ups and puts me -- without asking me -- with this band of racists called 'people of color,' and that includes black, brown, Indian, and Asians.  Now it seems to me that some of these 'people of color,' like some black people, have been searching day and night through their ancestry for anyone they can call white, and the last thing they want is to be in the company of each other.  We don't ever see them interacting with each other on TV shows or in their movies."
"Well, isn't it their right to associate with whomever they please?"
"And maybe there's racism among them, especially the Asians, and nobody wants to mention it."
"I'm not familiar with any Asian people."

"Yesterday, one sat next to me on the bus and that shocked me.  I thought, She must have just arrived here.  Asian women don't sit next to black men on a bus . . . they'll ban her from the Asian community.  And then I thought, Maybe she's setting me up and in a moment she'll start yelling, 'Stop harassing me, you rapist!'  Immediately I jumped up -- probably scared her and she'll never sit next to a black dude again -- and I got off the bus at the next stop and took another bus.  So I'm starting a new race for me"
"What are you going to call it, sir?"
"I want an authorized document for identification saying that I'm in a race called 'Majority Of One' and nobody can get in it but me . . ."
"Oh, I understand your  problem now.  You want the department on that side street arond the corner."
"What's the address?"
"It doesn't have an address.  It's the only two-story black iron building in one of those seldom seen side streets -- lots of people get lost in them.  Think you can find it?"
"I got a head full of 'em.  Do it have a name?"
"There's a black iron sign in front of it with big white letters."
"What they say?"
"Miscellaneous."