I didn’t realize\u00a0you could laugh about\u00a0American racism until that night. Bell exposes its absurd side: The fact that People Magazine once voted Nick Nolte sexiest man alive, but only one black guy since 1985 (Denzel Washington, who deserved it, but still). White people asking random black people how they wash their hair and whether they may touch it. Kamau is a fast talker with a bearish appearance. He is sharp and personable and soon gets the young crowd to roar with laughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

After the show, we sit on stands of the college’s basketball field while roadies take down the stage, and Bell tells me about that incident about one and a half year ago.<\/p>\n

He and his wife, Melissa, had just had their second child. Melissa Bell met with her moms-group at a coffee-shop in Berkeley. They had recently had their second baby. It was Bell’s\u00a0birthday, so he stopped by to say hello. The moms, all of whom were white, were sitting at a table outside. They chatted and Kamau showed them a book he had just bought. I<\/span>t was a children\u2019s book called \u201cThe Loving couple\u201d, about Richard and Mildred Loving, the white man and the black woman who won the 1967 land-mark Supreme Court verdict banning all prohibitions and restrictions on interracial marriage in the United States.\u00a0Suddenly, an employee at the inside of the caf\u00e9 knocked on the window and shouted through the glass to \u201cget out of here”. \u201cI looked up and mused, is that person talking to me\u201d, Bell\u00a0recalls, \u201cand as I still wonder, the employee walked out of the caf\u00e9 and shooed me along. I said, what\u2019s the matter, I am talking to my wife. And she said, oh, I thought you were selling something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When Kamau tells me that story, I feel caught. Just a few days ago, in New York, I had similarly become caught up in racially biased micro-interaction.<\/p>\n

I got up at five o\u2019clock in the morning to go to the airport. The taxi driver says he doesn\u2019t accept credit cards, and I don\u2019t have enough cash, so I ask him to stop at an ATM. He lets me out of the car at a random Bank of America on the Lower East Side. It is still dark. A police car is howling past. Inside the bank\u2019s lobby, there are several machines. Next to me, a young black guy wearing a hoody is withdrawing money. I still fumble with my card when he is done and walks past my back towards the entrance. I turn around and we look at each other. \u201cHey Miss, give me all your money\u201d, he says, and then, after a well placed pause, laughs, shakes his head and walks out.<\/p>\n

It was a cruel joke, and yet when I\u2019m back in the taxi and replay the scene, I have to admit, that he got it right: I had felt anxious – because it was early, and I was by myself, but also because he was black. I did turn around when he walked past my back because I half expected him to rob me and I was getting ready to duck and run.<\/p>\n