Friday, October 17, 2008

Black mushers

I met a friend the other day who is, and I mean this in a positive way, professionally black. She performs, talks and writes about being black. You're in a minority, you want people to know what it's like. Fine.
Invariably, when talking to people like her and describing my life, I feel very, very white. Again, not in a bad way. But these situations make me think of Richard Pryor's quip about how white people always seemed to have "such exiting weekends! They'd go bearhunting and trekking and stuff," while he was down on the streets.
Interestingly, the first man to mush to the north pole may well have been Matthew Henson (above). And then there's a guy called Ralph Bradley who won the Wells Fargo "Red Lantern Award" in the Iditarod 1982. (An award for arriving last, Bradley spent 26 days on the trail.) And then there's Cuba Gooding (below) in the film "Snow Dogs", though I'm not sure that counts. Part of the supposedly humorous content in this movie, though never really stated , is simply the idea of a black musher!

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