![\"3093809724_f7a844fec2\"](\"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/3093809724_f7a844fec2.jpg\" "\\"3093809724_f7a844fec2\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I hailed a cab on Saturday night to go to a friend’s house.\u00a0 The driver was a polite brown man with heavily accented but superior English.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nWe quickly established a nice rapport and chatted about upcoming summer events in Chicago.\u00a0 He told me how he had just driven by Grant Park and they were already setting up for Taste of Chicago.\u00a0 I groaned.\u00a0 He asked if I had ever been.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Not since I was little” I said “but if I died and went to hell I would wake up every day in the middle of the Taste of Chicago”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe cab driver laughed.\u00a0 “It’s very crowded” He replied.\u00a0 “And expensive.”\u00a0 Then he seemed to change the subject, and insist that he wasn’t a racist.\u00a0 I assured him that I believed him.\u00a0 Then he asked me if I knew the real problem with Taste of Chicago.\u00a0 I shook my head- no.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“The black people” He said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Errm” I said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I’m not a racist, I’m just saying that the black people cause all the problems at the Taste.”\u00a0 He turned around in the driver’s seat to make sure I knew how serious he thought this issue was.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Huh.\u00a0 All the problems?\u00a0 I didn’t realize that.”\u00a0 I started counting how many more blocks until we got to Belmont.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“It’s like Lollapalooza” he continued.\u00a0 “I’m am not a racist, I am not.\u00a0 You must understand that I am not a racist” I braced myself.\u00a0 “But the problem with Lollapalooza is all the black people.\u00a0 They make it so bad.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We came to a red light and he slammed on the brakes.\u00a0 He turned around again.\u00a0 We stared at each other for a moment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I’m not sure you know what racist means” I said.\u00a0 Then I put my headphones on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That cab driver was not only a racist, he was totally wrong.\u00a0 The problem with Taste of Chicago is that no one wants to stand up while eating a turkey leg in 99 degree heat surround by swarms of fat people in shorts.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I hailed a cab on Saturday night to go to a friend’s house.\u00a0 The driver was a polite brown man with heavily accented but superior English.\u00a0 We quickly established a nice rapport and chatted about upcoming summer events in Chicago.\u00a0 He told me how he had just driven by Grant Park and they were … Continue reading “Vocabulary Lesson”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3782,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/3782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}