Race

Teenage girl #1: I’m sure there’s at least one West African child that isn’t heavily inebriated!
Teenage girl #2: Ya, I knew one once, he was a really bad fuck.

–112th b/w Broadway & Amsterdam

Overheard by: Ema O’Connor

Black girl: I’m not voting. I’m from Illinois and I never registered to get an absentee ballot.
White guy: Well, Obama’s clearly going to win there, anyway. (pause) Oh, wait… No, I didn’t mean…
Black girl: No, it’s okay, you’re right, I would have voted for him.
White guy: But that’s not why I… It wasn’t the black thing, it was the NYU thing.

–NYU Silver Center

Old woman: Take a picture of me with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their son.
Young woman: Mom, the black kid isn’t a wax figure.
Old woman: Well, she just keeps adopting them, I thought it was her son!

–Madame Tussaud’s

Overheard by: Julie

Crowd watching Indiana Jones trailer: Yeah! Woo hoo!
Young black guy (legitimately surprised): Damn! That whip drives the white folks crazy!

–Court Street Multiplex, Brooklyn

Overheard by: iiams

Black girl #1: I wanna date a white boy. One that looks like a skater.
Black girl #2: No, not me. I want an intellectual, so I could act all ignorant around him and he’d still love me.

–158th & St Nicks

Overheard by: jay r.

Girl: I never read Ragtime.
Guy: Really? I enjoyed it very much.
Girl: Well, I tried to read it, but my older sister saw me with it and freaked. She took it away and was all “There are Eskimos masturbating in this!”
Guy: Well, they need to have fun too, you know.

–Stuyvesant High School

Girl #1: So did Michelle* go out with Tom* yet?
Girl #2: She’s not Asian.

–Times Square

Art student to friend: Did you know that our shit would be white if we didn’t have bile to mix with it?
Black security guard, raising fist: Black power!

–School of Visual Arts

Overheard by: dobby

Blonde: So I started calling my students “nizzle”.
Brunette: “Nizzle” means “nigger”.
Blonde: Oh. My. God.

–A Train

Hobo: Man, if you wanna get into heaven, you gotta talk to black people. They know where they at. Can’t get into heaven if you don’t talk to black people.

–Statue of Liberty

Bimbette on cell: So she is like pregnant? Like she is gonna have a baby? Hey, whatever happened to that black family?

–Penn Station

Overheard by: Bigg Rigg

NYU grad student: Bill Clinton isn’t black to me anymore.

–NYU

Black couple to group of white people: We’re black! We’re invisible!

–W 4th St

Overheard by: mada

White grandpa to white granddaughter in playground: Black kids have so much fun!

–Union Square Park