What Would Social Justice Warrior Do?

Today I took my kid to the park.

All well and good.

But we get there, and this little boy starts immediately yelling at my daughter and beaconing her to come play. He was very demanding. Told her what to do from the minute we got to the playground.

Now, to be clear.. My daughter doesn't know this kid. I don't know this kid.

For some reason that little shit-head seemed to think he was entitled to make everyone around him his bitch. He's up in there calling on a race to the top of the monkey bars but of course he doesn't yell to race until he's already started running and is half-way there. And then he calls my kid over to whatever he's doing only to lose interest by the time she gets there and demand she go run elsewhere.

I did not like this kid.

And when this kid started to throw sand at my kid, I very nearly came unglued. It'd be one thing if she was a big eight year old like he was, but she's barely six, and small for her age. Not exactly going to let my kid get bullied while I'm right there.

However.

I am as lily white as they come. My daughter is also, so far as I know, even though she looks like she might have some brand of not-Caucasian blood in her somewhere.

And this little boy, this little dick-head of a boy, happened to be black.

Cue uncomfortable dilemma. Do I tell this little black child off like I would any little white child that was doing the same thing?

No. I can't do that. We're not allowed to do that, not in this town, I've been called a racist for less. Only ever by other white people, which seems a bit odd, but still. I do not need to have the reputation of a racist. (I dared to express dislike of someone not of my own colour. This was racist, I guess, because racism in a small town apparently = expressing dislike of any person of obvious minority, even if they are clearly a jerk by any standards.)

Pretty much everyone where I live is like this guy, only dumber. 

Suffice to say, the little black kid got to get away with being a total jerk today, but I bought my daughter some ice cream and have vowed to say something next time if I ever see that little shit act that way again.

And I suppose, if nothing else, my daughter and I both learned a valuable lesson about reality vs. idealism, and the universe probably got a smidge closer to balancing the scales. Some days you're the dog, some days you"re the hydrant, and black people as a whole have had a lot more hydrant days.

Today, that little boy got to be the dog to my white-ass hydrant. And I guess that's just how it is.

At least there was ice cream after.