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Jazz Hands: The Unarmed Edition
I have a joke:
a man walks into a bar.
No. That’s not quite right—
a black man walks into a bar.
The punch line is
wrong place wrong time.
You
should have known better than to
be out late. Loitering. Your dark clothes
and your hands inside your pockets (criminally)
instead of in
plain sight.
(Jazz Hands,
they call them.)
I have a joke:
a black man walks out of a bar and into an alley.
You
should have known better than to
be out in daylight. Walking. Your nondescript clothes
and your hands inside your pockets (casually)
instead of in
plain sight.
(Little known fact:
Jazz Hands are not the same
as Jazz Fingers.
The former is still,
the latter is an excited motion
almost as if preceding
a friendly game
of quick draw.)
The punch line is
the officer, when he shoots,
doesn’t even know
the difference.
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