Strattened things out

OkTataByeBye is running a travel contest/reality show, as some of you perhaps know. They have shortlisted 12 people, whose pictures you will find on their site, and whom you can read about with some judicious clicking of your mouse. It turns out I know three of these people, two whom I've met and one only by email: fine folks all and I wish them all the best.

This post is not about them.

This post is about a "weird travel adventure" one of the twelve, a Karishma Pais, relates here. It boils down to this: had to get to "Stratten Island" (sic), bought a bus ticket, bus seriously delayed, bought plane ticket instead, slept in airport, took flight, took another long bus ride, got there.

Yep, weird.

But her account has these lines:

Reached the Greyline bus stop in downtown Chicago on time. It was pretty scary, since most of the other commuters were low income African Americans. Their size and perpetual scowls can be quite intimidating ... After haggling with another intimidating African American Female Manager ...

[Italics mine]

I mean, really. Those low income AAs! Those BIG low income AAs! Those big SCOWLING low income AAs! And to think some of those big scowling low income AAs are actually FEMALE! Even MANAGERS!

How intimidating.

And I thought travel, especially "weird travel adventures", opened and broadened minds.