You're cool with me, brother (as I see why I'm not with you)

It is comical insofar as I otherwise respect the man, who despises me now, and believe his opinions on some things must be well within the bounds of those statements that may be considered interesting (he also sees films and likes to share his opinions vocally with those around him).  He obviously wants to believe me a racist, and it would gratify his pride to somehow verify the supposition that I am one.  (Yes, he’s black.  He walks with a strut. I had treated him amicably (and certainly as an equal).  Of course that is not good enough.  Black people in America in my generation often have a chip on their shoulder and will rapidly spring into a hatred of you for the, they assume, obviously racist thing you said or did, which is almost anything that can be so supposed or imagined.  What surprise is that when so many of them readily talk disparagingly of the “white people” who (of course) “oppress” them.  Though I know that is a lie.  I certainly know that black Americans were oppressed and many very much still are.  The claims that they are oppressed by the likes of me are rather wildly exaggerated, but the evidence of this is something I should have seen decades ago, having observed the nasty consequences all my life.  I side with much of their cause, would be their comrade if they let me, and in fact I consider that I am today, though only from the distance I prefer (and must insist upon) of peering from behind my book or writing tablet.  I won’t get into the game of “who is more oppressed,” but merely state that I have experienced myself a great deal of very nasty treatment by people enforcing the norms of American society, and I think my problem is capitalism, which is also theirs.  Those of them who hate me, that is their problem, just as it would be mine if I hated them, as I do not.  I know this in reflection; in person, my stance in this regard is quite regularly challenged.  It will be said that reveals my racist hypocrisy, to which I say, nonsense.  I am the denied and defeated comrade who opposes structures of oppression most of them unwittingly affirm.  This probably indicates for me a certain separation.  Mine is merely that while every neighbor and stranger deserves my social and political empathy, few will I want to treat as friends, and must resent the demand that I do so.  That everyone must be treated as a friend even if they are stranger is part of the American disease.  It is a protestant idea that pervades our liberal progressivism.  I know I sound like I am on the right; but I am on the left, it’s veritably my religion.  Men like this man will go on hating me, and I cannot change that.  I can mind my own business and be polite in their presence.  That may not work with them.  I resolve to live by the norms of justice and decency available to me notwithstanding.  I would know more about their culture.  Unfortunately, American society is not very integrated and I can yearn for this to change but individually am condemned as everyone else is to ethical stances that if insisted upon can only seem a bit hypocritical.  In respect of that, you do what you can, imperfectly, and maybe sadly reconcile yourself to the likely prospect of being hated in public should you stray too far into it.  My homeland is my texts.  Most people are not that way; I’m ok with that.  Sorry sir or madam if I took you for someone I could disagree with, as if I could assume, counterfactually (and so wrongly) that you would share my recognition of that as friendly, desirable, and good.  American society is not like that, it is a Protestant Christian one, as I suspect your culture is.  It’s ok, you’re ok, I beg you judge that I am or at least consider that I might be.  I realize my mistake was to get too close to a neighbor.  That is always a mistake.  In American society it is a problem.  
  
He flew into a rage and says people like me deserve to be targets of violence after I, in the friendliest manner, corrected his mispronunciation of the name of a European philosopher.  I assume a very different reaction would have applied if I were the one in error and the mispronounced name were of a respected person from the Global South.  In retrospect I find it quite amusing.  He thought I was enforcing white supremacy, which is perfectly absurd.  He said that languages don't matter, obviously preferring to use American English universally.  He accused me of antisocial impoliteness and quickly starting trying to bash my ego as no good in this and that way, like a school boy bully.  He accused me of coming to the theater alone (as he does) and of only being capable of reading books.  Since I was reading Foucault in French, he thinks I’m a snob.  He appealed for support to another person with whom I had disagreed, a Zionist on the political right, as a member of his community of cool people.  I am reminded that in ‘society’ in America if I do not keep my mouth shut and mind my own business I can expect only to beaten up.  This man was enforcing Americanism.  He expects me to believe that his dislike of me is racial, which if true could only be my fault.  Shit liberals do.  (Yes, Virginia, I know that ‘conservatives’ have their own).