Do I Look Like a $%&@$! Rolling Stones Song to You?

I'm always reminded that I'm different. Usually, it's the stares I get as I paddle out to the lineup. Sometimes it's the conversation (which does get old, people) about the fact that the person who initiated the discussion had never seen a black woman surf before.

Today it was the guy telling me he'd come up with a nickname for me. (No, I didn't know this freak of a man.) Then he apologetically told me he was going to call me "Brown Sugar".

Now really. Really? Really? While he did not say anything overtly racist or insulting, I'm certain he would not have been amused if he'd paddled out to a lineup full of black folks and I'd said, "Hey there, Frosty the Snowman!"

I've seen a dwarf surfer a couple of times. Do you know what I did? I watched him surf. I did not stare. I watched him like I watch other surfers on waves. In my eyes, he was a surfer. Period. I did not paddle up to him to start a conversation about the two of us being aberrations.

We're just surfers. If I'm sitting in the water on a board and you're sitting in the water on a board, then it's obvious that surfing is the bond we two humans have with one another. Why would you want to point out the ways in which we are different (especially when they're readily apparent)? Enjoy the ocean, share the waves and . . . well . . . shut the $%#@ up!