Teenage girl: I really admire immigrants…even though most of them are criminals.
–Times Square
Overheard by: intern
Teenage girl: I really admire immigrants…even though most of them are criminals.
–Times Square
Overheard by: intern
Guy: So then why are guys from the Eastern Europe and black guys so good at basketball?
Dad: Natural selection.
Guy: What?
Dad: They’ve had to fight to survive. It weeds out the physically inadequate.
Guy: Give me a break. It’s the ghetto, not some Hobbesian state of nature; they’re not cavemen living in anarchy up there.
–Madison Square Garden
Professor: So, when we last left the Jews they were suffering. But, then, we can take that for granted.
–Stern Building, NYU
Overheard by: Jayso
Woman to queer: … All the Jews I’ve ever seen have had the most marvelous penises.
–E 4th St & 2nd Ave
Drunk girl looking at Jewish frat boy: Wearing a kippah is like wearing a cage around your penis.
–Frat party, Columbia
Overheard by: I never go to frats bc…..
Long Island girl: Wait… What is Friday Night Lights? Is that a movie about Shabbat?!
–LIRR
Asian girl to her white friend: Oh my God, we have to leave before someone else thinks I work here.
–store in Chinatown
Overheard by: shopper
Man, leading a small group of tourists: We are entering Little Korea. This is where you can find… little Koreans.
–M4 bus, 32nd St.
Black woman #1: What is this?
Black woman #2: White people don’t know what fried chicken looks like.
–Cafeteria, 17th St & 7th Ave
Overheard by: Amanda
Girl #1: I don’t know, I think there was a language barrier.
Girl #2: Where is he from?
Girl #1: Well, Israel.
Girl #2: What the fuck do they speak there? Arabic?
–Carroll Gardens
Overheard by: Janis Glendon
Hostess #1: So the day after he dumped me, he bought me a copy of The Latin Sexual Vocabulary.
Hostess #2: And this is why classicists should never be allowed to meet one another.
Hostess #1: Yeah, now I know ten ways to say “fuck you, asshole” in Latin.
–Boat Basin Cafe, W. 79th Street
Scraggly white dude #1: What’s The Host? I want to see that shit.
Scraggly white dude #2: What about this one — The Wire?
Scraggly white dude #1: Nah, I don’t like all that black people, drug dealing, hip hop shit.
Scraggly white dude #2: Yeah, me neither — like that movie Jungle Fever.
–F train platform
Overheard by: Leif
Tweenie boy #1: Michael Jackson SUCKS!
Tweenie boy #2: Well, did you hear his music when he was black?
Tweenie boy #1: Michael Jackson was black?!
–Central Park
Overheard by: nas
Older black man to nobody in particular: Ain't nothin' done changed in two-hundred years! White folks is still goin' round makin' a mess and then makin' a black man come in and clean up after them…
–Post Office, Gun Hill & Jerome, The Bronx
Asian girl: Do white people eat sandwiches for dinner?
–Grand Central
Overheard by: Spec
Black teen girl: If a sister is feeding a white bitch, you know she is fucked up.
–T.G.I. Friday's
Overheard by: Chris K
Black chick: But can a Frenchman be a honky?
–Park Slope, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Hunter
Linguistically savvy hobo: The term "cracker" originated from a man named Robert Whitely. It was used to refer to people as "white trash".
–37th & 3rd
Latina woman to elderly mother: We gonna find you a seat soon, mami. If I gotta beat up white bitches… Let's go.
–3rd & 1st
Overheard by: j
