I should have known better than to get into an argument with my wife. Past experience has shown that she will go to extremes to win, even if she ends up biting off her nose to spite her face, and that's just what happened here.
Leslie is an outspoken woman and she has an opinion on everything under the sun. Those opinions are strong and forceful and for the sake of peace and harmony I've learned to keep my mouth shut since I have never been able to change her mind on anything. The latest brouhaha came about at a cocktail party that her company was throwing for its customers. We were at a table in the center of the room and I noticed a tall, good looking black man circulating through the crowd and greeting people. I also noticed that while he had visited every table around us he had not even glanced our way. I asked Leslie who he was and she told me that his name was Tony and he was the head of accounting. When I mentioned that he seemed to be avoiding our table she said, "That's not surprising. He knows that I don't care for him."
"Why not" I asked, "He seems to get along with everyone else here."
She glanced in his direction and said, "He is an arrogant son of a bitch and I just don't like him."
I chuckled and said, "You don't like him because he's black" and the minute I said it I knew that I'd fucked up.
"And just what do you mean by that?" she demanded.
Well, once I take Leslie on I won't back off any more than she will so I said, "You know full well what I mean. You have a prejudice against blacks, it shows when you are around them and it makes them uncomfortable so they avoid you." This was a subject that I definitely should have avoided because she immediately got her back up.
"Bull! Give me one instance when I've shown prejudice against blacks," and I began ticking them off one by one on my fingers while she kept interrupting me to "explain" why she had done this, that, and the other.
"Okay" I said, "Go ahead and get Tony and bring him over to the table. Tell him you would like him to meet your husband."
She scowled at me, "No! I don't have to prove anything to you. I am not prejudiced!"
I should have just let it go, but I didn't. There were about six or seven blacks at the party and so I said to her, "Okay, let's go over and sit with them" and I pointed at a table where two black couples were sitting. But she had an excuse why we couldn't go sit with them so I pointed at another couple that was sitting alone. She said no to that to. "Face it Leslie, you are a bigot."
Now she was mad and she practically hissed at me "No I am not!"
"Okay" I said, "Prove to me that you are not."
She asked me how she could do that and I thought for a minute and then I said, " Ask Tony to lunch. Tell him that you sense that the two of you seem to be uncomfortable around each and you thought that maybe you could sit down and discuss it over lunch. In the interest of work place solidarity and stuff like that."
She took the dare, "Okay, I will!" I sat there watching her and waiting for her to get up and go over to him, but she didn't. Finally she said, "What are you looking at?"
I smiled and said, "Just waiting." "For what?" she wanted to know. "For you to go ask him."
She gave me a nasty look; "I am not going to do it tonight. I'll do it at work tomorrow. It will be more natural."
I smiled to myself and made myself a bet that it would never happen.
Next night at dinner I asked Leslie how her lunch with Tony went and she told me that she had gotten so busy that she'd not had a chance to ask him. I kept on her about it for the next two or three weeks, asking her two or three times a week about her lunch with Tony, and I always got the same answer, she was just too busy to get around to it. Finally I said, "Leslie, just admit you are prejudiced against blacks."
"I am not!"
I grinned at her and said, "You are until you prove to me that you're not."
After that I stopped getting on her about Tony and nothing more was said until her company Christmas party. When we arrived I noticed that there were empty seats at the table where Tony was sitting and I pointed to the table and said, "Let's sit there."
She shook her head and said, "No. I don't want to sit there."
I chuckled and said, "I knew you would say that."
She gave me a nasty look and hissed, "Damn you! I am not a bigot!" and then she took me by the arm and led me to a different table. I decided to shut up on the subject and just sit back and enjoy the party, but about an hour and a couple of drinks into it Leslie said, "You still think I'm prejudiced, don't you?"