If it was like a big deal, a big score, they would clap. When the police came, everybody played dumb. They do not want people to get caught. They liked it.
I saw a black person with three stolen boxes on the train today. This one black women was looking at him with a big smile. They like it. White people; they call the police on the man. Completely different.
Black people are so different from white people. I met this devotee and I was just telling him that Srila Prabhupada is really something; that he has put me in the position to understand black people. They think that this is no big deal. A lot of people think they understand black people; but they do not. I mean a lot of people understand black people, but not a lot of Northern Americans. I think Southern people understand better.
But once this person said,
“I understand them pretty well.”
“I do not think you do.”
He said that he was working with somebody black.
I replied,
“That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a whole life style, consciousness.”
“Yeah, I was pretty close and all this kind of stuff too.”
I explained to him that if you move in and live with them and work with them, especially on a spiritual level, then you see the propensities are just so much different than white people. In fact, everybody is different.
But the races are really much different. And he got so angry.
I said,
“You just do not understand black people.”
And there was a black person sitting next to me and he is my friend.
I asked him,
“Well who do you think is right?”
And he said,
“I do not want to say anything, I do not want to get involved.”
But then as soon as he walked away, I asked my black friend,
“What did you think?”
“He does not understand black people.”
“Do you think I do?”
“Yes.”
I remember when I was in Harlem, this black person said that I was very popular in Harlem. This person came up one day and said,
“You know, I like you. I never saw a white person that could come up and live here.”
Which is true. He continued,
“I think you really know us. And you should write a book he said. You should be the first white man that writes a book about black people and tell them exactly what we are, because you would write it the way it is.”