'White Pride'

There were a bunch of us cane-users sat at the front of the bus when the tattooed man, cane in hand, boarded. A couple of people (of color) near me tried to get his attention. They wanted to alert him to a few empty seats that he could have his choice of taking. He ignored them and instead took out a pair of nail clippers he then used to remove the plastic wrapping around the book you see in the photo. He mumbled a few times while clipping: 'I'll be out of this town soon.'

There was an empty seat between me and an elderly black man. The black man attempted long after the others had given up to let the tattooed fellow know that the open seat next to him was free. His entreaties fell on deaf ears. Or was it racist ears? As this was going on I noticed that across the knuckles on his right hand read: W-H-I-T-E (as you can see above) and across his left read: P-R-I-D-E. Indeed, one doesn't even need to see the left hand. Below the word 'white' is inked 'love'. Surely the words tattooed on his person dictated the man's behavior?

My stop came right after I snapped the photo. Well, guess what? As soon as I vacated my seat, the old gummer sat down in it. Apparently, he could tolerate sitting with a space between him and the elderly black man, but nothing else.