White People

Overly enthusiastic white dad: What are you saying no to?
Toddler: No no no no no no no!
Overly enthusiastic white dad: Are you saying no to drugs?
Toddler: No no no no no no no!
Overly enthusiastic white dad: Are you not saying no to drugs? Are you doing drugs?

–73rd between Broadway and West End

Overheard by: UpperWestsidette

Really tall white guy: Dude! Chinatown is awesome! I accidentally elbowed a woman in the face, and she didn’t even say anything!
Asian friend: What?!

–Mulberry & Bayard

Long Island girl: The things I think about when I’m not sleeping are so meaningless.

–Brooklyn

Overheard by: Casayoto

Guy: Yeah, he has this obsession with white weasels. It’s just very New York, you know?

–23rd & 8th

Overheard by: Kate

White Girl: I’m leaving this city, it’s all just bed bugs and bad drugs.

–Queensboro Plaza

Overheard by: Zach

Prudish waitress, to another: In New York, you just come to expect cock-on-cock, ass-on-ass talk… In DC, you don’t.

–1 Train

Student to friend: You play the paranoid freak, I will play the egomaniac. We will call it "New York".

–49th & 1st

Thug #1 to Thug #2, while observing typical, plain, Midwest vacationing family getting off a tour bus: Get back on that bus! This New York! You can’t handle this shit! [Teenage kids smile. The father, absolutely horrified, grabs the kids and throws them back on the bus.]

–42nd St & 5th Ave

Overheard by: Bunk Moreland

Middle-aged white guy: … Yeah, well, Stan hurt himself.
Younger black guy: Well, he be wearin dresses and shit…

–Fulton St

Overheard by: Ruru

Goatee-sporting man: …AND GOD HUMBLED HIMSELF AND BECAME ONE OF US…AND HE GAVE US FREE WILL…
Middle aged white woman: Yeah… Ummm, can you take this somewhere else?

–E train

Filipino girl #1: So, he’s from Bangladesh, right?
White guy: Really? Are you sure? ‘Cause he looks white…
Filipino girl #2: Yeah, but he’s really Filipino. Bangladesh is in Asia, right?
Filipino girl #1: Yeah, but not our part, which is why he doesn’t look completely white like me.

–1 train

Short, fat sista: If she was only around my age, then I wouldn’t mind a slave for life.

–27th & 7th

Overheard by: tuna on rye

White guy in scrubs: Wow. Now I know what it felt like to be in the bottom of a slave ship.

–Crowded Franklin Ave 2/3/4/5 platform, Brooklyn

Overheard by: pmd

Punk girl to friend: I’m going to make him my Ukrainian sex slave!

–N 4th St & Driggs Ave

Overheard by: Hipsterrrrrs

Dude: Yeah, well, let me say this in English — she got arrested for selling people…

–Madison Square Garden

Black girl watching Asian girl mop floor: Slavery is back!

–NYFA, Union Square

Overheard by: kswin

Hobo: Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not gonna lie to you — I’m broke, homeless, and I really wanna see Big Momma’s House 2. Please spare some change.

–F train

Overheard by: benny

20-ish chick: Why is Jason Bateman in a movie called Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium? This ruins all of my fantasies.

–Harlem

Overheard by: Ladle

Diner: Yo, ‘hyena’ — I know how that’s spelled. H-Y-H-E-E-N-A. High-heena! I know that shit. I saw The Lion King.

–IHOP, Staten Island

Overheard by: explosivo

Ghetto white girl: She never even saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s until I lent it to her… Tryin’ to act like that’s her shit…

–B train

Young Socrates: Yo, son, Saw II is the ill philosophic reference.

–Brooklyn College

Overheard by: fival went east

Flight attendant: Attention, passengers, please turn your attention to channel 30. Caddyshack is on!

–LaGuardia

Overheard by: Erica: I quickly went to channel thirty

Asian chick: … And that’s the bar where I got roofied.
White chick: You didn’t get roofied! You got food poisoning!
Asian chick: Yeah, I know, but it doesn’t make for as good a story.

–W 4th & 6th