1. Friendship and infidelity, Part 1


    Date: 3/6/2016, Categories: Interracial, Author: SirSpewalot, Rating: 4, Source: LushStories

    friends whom they often took jabs at in their absence. “Don’t you scoff, missy, they might well have.” We laughed and Dave continued, “But it is a heart-warming similarity. Africa and India, cousins under the skin.” I interjected, “Except that soul food’s really a great deal Indian at root. The other Indians, that is.” Sandra smiled and said, “I really do think you need to elaborate on that little piece of heresy.” I smiled back and said, “Seriously, the basics of Southern cooking came from the Indians in the Southeast.” Dave frowned, “How?” “Because in the early 1700s, in South Carolina probably a quarter of the slaves were Indians. The British were allied to the tribes near the coast, and those tribes made war on tribes further inland. They’d capture prisoners and sell them to the British, and most of them were women since they were less likely to run away to go home. So they married, well, not technically since slaves couldn’t marry, but they had families with African men, and taught what they knew about plants and animals to their children.” “So even our food’s not our food?” she smiled with an evil glint in her eye. I smiled back, “No, of course it’s your food. It has Indian roots, but there are African elements. Okra, for example. And the tradition itself is, oh, thoroughly a part of black culture.” And for the next few minutes I essentially recapitulated the basics of a course on Southern social history I had taken and continued reading about. At the end of it, ...
    Phyllis said, “See what I have to listen to all the time? Just don’t get him started on the Insular Cases.” We laughed and Sandra asked, “Why, are they boring?” Phyllis replied, “When he talks about them they’re fascinating. Afterwards you wonder how the hell that happened.” After dinner we split into our by-then habitual pairs, and as Phyllis and Dave sat at the table going over the choices of books for one of the papers in the class, Sandra and I sat in the living room and talked more about Southern history. By this point in our friendship we had become mildly flirtatious and completely at ease with each other, and finally she smiled and asked, “You’ve had a couple of black girlfriends, haven’t you?” I was puzzled and said, “No, never have. Why do you think so?” “Shame, you’d be a good match. You seem like you had. You’re completely normal about...what we’ve been talking about. Most of the white people who talk about it are not normal about it at all. Either they’re dismissive or they’re too curious, really creepy about it. Like they’re, oh, trying to be honorary blacks, you know. Or to show how super-enlightened they are sticking up for us unusual others.” “Hmm, do you get that a lot?” “No, but it really stands out when it happens. So it’s just history to you?” I shook my finger at her. “I study history. There is no such thing as ‘just’ history. There is history , and then there’s less interesting stuff.” “No, there’s physics , then there’s less interesting stuff.” “I stand ...
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