Awkward Moment

I'm going to sound totally clueless with this, but anyway...

Mobile post. I'm in Okinawa now and hitch-hiked to Nago in the north. I got picked up by a really nice couple that used to be in the US military, and relocated to Okinawa. They were both black.

They were really friendly and we talked about the US election. The husband joked he would probably be tired of Obama in a year, but that he was willing to give him a chance over McCain. The wife said she wasn't too impressed with McCain's negative campaigning. "If all they can do is talk about why we *shouldnt* vote for Obama, they cant have much going on themselves." I agreed wholeheartedly.

Later, it turned out they were from Virginia, and I asked them if they liked the producer Timbaland, who's from there. The husband looked at his wife and said, "Oh yes, Allen Iverson is from Virginia too," the point being that I was bringing up black rappers and basketball players that happened to be from Virginia. He didn't sound angry or indignant or accusing, like he was making a mountain out of a molehill. Just...wary. Like he was seeing a routine begin to play out that he'd been through a million times before.

He was cool about it and didnt seem to mind, and we talked happily for the rest of the ride. But his wife seemed really ticked off that I had assumed they might know/like Timbaland, told me she liked Celine Dion, and put on her headphones and didnt talk to me much after that.

I felt so bad that it became a thing and put a distance between us. I just really like Timbaland. When I meet people from Minnesota I ask them if they like Garrison Keillor the same way. I see a lot of jokes about these "touchy subjects" on American TV, where someone says one thing and it gets taken as racial. But I assumed it was exaggeration.