Even army boots were made for walking

20/03/08 23:10
Van Gogh
Since we arrived here I have mostly been looking to the sky. Not only for fear of getting pierced by falling glass, but also out of fascination with the Atlanta skyline. Today, however, I resolved to lower my gaze a bit, and start looking people in the eye. Unlike me, most of them are colored. Yet unlike back in Denmark, it doesn't in the least influence my impression of them. It is hard to admit - and even harder to describe - how the color of somebody's skin can influence the way you think about them. Because of the relatively high concentration of Middle Eastern Muslims back home I tend to feel relatively positive towards them, while the opposite is usually true about people from African countries. I don't dislike them or anything, I just don't know enough about them and their culture to feel wholly at ease in their presence. I see young African girls forced to prostitute themselves in the streets, side by side with their male counterparts pimping them, selling drugs, watches, goldchains, and whatnot. I see other people with African background, too, but I don't see a lot, not anything like here in Atlanta.

Walking around town today, I found my immediate impression of the people I met based not on the color of their skin, but on their choice of clothes, hairstyle, pose, and words. The difference, of course, is the one between the biological and the social. Not what nature has condemned you to, but rather what society and you yourself have condemned you to in unison. The point is that society is not the only one to blame - though, for sure, it carries a huge part of the blame, too - you also have to add yourself in the equation. I guess that's what America's all about. No matter how righteous your indignation, it is always partly self-righteous. You can tell as many tall tales as you like about the unjustice that has been done to you, but justice is never simple, never uncontroversial.

I won't hesitate to admit that I have never been a huge fan of the overseas operations of the US Army, yet today I found myself shopping for boots in a US Army Surplus Store (my other pair of shoes didn't quite make it past yesterday's umbrella salesman). I didn't feel in the least uncomfortable about it, and when I finally found the one pair I just had to have, all I could think of was Lee Hazzlewood subwoofing his way through "These boots were made for walking". Van Gogh would have been a happier man and a worse painter if only he could have worn them, don't you think?
Modern Van Gogh


Irony aside, I truly feel that the US has already taught me the first lesson about integration. It's not about who made the boots, or for what purpose, it's all about how you wear them. And honestly, I can't wait to go a-bouncing down the sidewalk to the Greyhound Bus Station tomorrow. Athens, I come prepared!
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