So, y'all know me. I'm a getting-old, libertarian-ish, white dude. Recently I got invited to volunteer for an outreach group by an even older ~70-something white dude. Outreach group basically involves doing stuff I'm already doing: basically spending a lot of time on a particular public trail and talking to people and answering questions and basically being the guy to call 911 if I happen to see an emergency happening.

 

Ok. Fine. Since this is the trail I've been riding on for 23 years now, and there's swag, I sign up for the thing, I do the stuff, it's fine (Earlier this week I was afraid I found evidence of someone jumping off a bridge but, phew!, false alarm). Until the day I again meet the guy who suggested I sign up.

 

And the fucker is talking to a black guy, maybe in his 20s, and he's trying to be friendly but his brain seems to be locked into some sort of racist stereotype because he keeps talking about cops and, I swear to god, "make sure they can see your hands" and talking about the escaped convict they just caught and how anybody could have a gun and, when I burst out with, "Where did THAT come from?" he starts making "polite" small talk like "where are you heading" which is perfectly reasonable small talk on a trail if you haven't just made the previous comments...

 

Anyway, I did my best to just get him away from the poor man, and I have absolute respect for the black guy for not losing his temper at all the insinuendo, but as time passes I'm just... What the actual fuck? Should I have done more? I was trying to gently nudge the dude away from the red line but, holy hell.