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
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
Jappy highschool queen bee to Starbucks guy wearing earrings: Are those real diamonds?
Twentysomething African-American Starbucks guy: No.
Jappy highschool queen bee: Awwww I’ll mail you some real ones for your Bar Mitzvah, okay?
–Stabrucks, 78th & Lex
A guy runs down and holds the train doors open. Guy: Yo! Yo! …Yo!
Conductor: Next stop West 4th, stand clear.
The doors close.
Conductor: …I wanna know who “Yo” is.
–A train
Overheard by: p. vale
Bag lady: Hey, can I bum a smoke?
Hipster guy: I bummed this one.
Bag lady: Ching-chong, ching-ching-ching-ching-chong!
She enters CVS and comes back.
Bag lady: Ching-chong, ching-chong.
Hipster guy: You’re a fat ugly bitch.
Bag lady: You’re a chink.
Hipster guy: Why don’t you say that to my face?
Bag lady: I will. My boyfriend will kick your ass!
Hipster guy: Why do you have to start with me right now?
Bag lady: Because you’re a chink. You’re Chinese, right?
Hipster guy: No.
Bag lady: Japanese?
Hipster guy: No.
Bag lady: Umm…Korean?
Hipster guy: No.
Bag lady: Asian?
–86th & 2nd
Overheard by: Nakul Patel
Crazy guy: 3 fucking white kids talking to a chink.
Chick #1: Little does he know that’s not the most offensive thing we’ve heard tonight.
Chick #2: Yeah, by comparison it was politically correct.
Chick #1: Yeah, it was kinda a relief.
–4 train
Hobo: This shit happens now! Y2K my ass, the world will end this New Year’s Day, 2006! Coming to a theatre near you…
–A train
Overheard by: Nina