Kym, like June, is a hard-to-read loner-type, plays online video games, uses over-the-ear headphones similar to the ones June did, wears hoodies, eats in the office, is rudely loud, laughing weirdly and trash-talkin' her online buddies. Loudly. Distractingly. Filthy-mouthed. Munching on food in our shared office space, smelling the place up. Uggh! Oh, and she, like June, is a control-freak, obstinate, whitey-hating, African-American lesbian who is not about to let a fat, middle-aged, snippy-assed, power-queen, honkey faggot have a say over her. Uh uh.
Is it me? I don't think so. I found especially in regards to entry-level (ie. pretty much only high school educated) work here in Florida that there is a definite rift among the races. If a white person expresses their fidelity to the emerging hip-hop culture and talks "black" then they are accepted among black people as "ok." But if some oldster like me comes along, hates rap, hip-hop and all the current trends in "Black culture" not because he's racist but because he sees it as a divisive and confrontational movement against a greater American cultural unity, and speaks proper English, he's labeled "RACIST" and that is the end of that.
My years here in the South have opened my eyes to the fact that yes, racism is still alive here. But from my point of view, it's not what you think...it's surprisingly from black people prejudiced against whites.
I've been a life-long lover of history and was an A+ student of it in school. I had never heard of "40 acres and a mule" before coming here. But even after researching the issue I see it as just another instance in the long timeline of world history of people in power lying to those not and fucking them over. Boo hoo. I do agree it's a bum rap. But I found out that black people here in the South still expect something of it. Over a hundred years later! And they look to persons of fair skin to provide it. Well don't look at me, buddy. My 20th century ancestors are all from New England. Before that Canada. (Only my maternal grandfather's ancestry deviates since that line is directly from Poland.) And while in the 17th century English settlers in Canada may have enslaved Native Americans, French settlers, like my ancestors, preferred to have families with them.
Meanwhile, back at the Center, I've emailed Charmaine about Kym, since it's clear now that her past few weeks of snippy behavior is indicative of her goal to "topple me from my throne." She's too youthfully ignorant to see the difference between de facto power and de jure power. The email is rather scathing, exposing all her vices. She does have several I can exploit. After the prior bo-bos on this shift before her, I was careful to not give any armament by way of my own vices to this new one lest she prove to be reticent to find comfort in my glory. She's proved. And she'll have nothing logical or truthful to back up a query from above as to why she performs as she does. Pity. And she showed such good progress.
So, either I'll be soon awaiting yet another replacement staff for the ship of overnight, or, I might have underestimated the whole thing and I'll be myself on the unemployment line.
Either way, I'm ready to accept my fate.