Last night I was riding the metro back to Eagle Rock after another spectacular night of breakdancing. My joints ached and my body was freezing cold. The layer of sweat I had quickly accumulated while dancing had immediately chilled when I stepped outside, making me a sopping wet, shivering mess. I had no idea how long it was going to take for the train to arrive. Across the station I noticed two breakers from the session. The younger guy, Adam, was practicing a spinning move and his brother Donnie was watching. I had met both of them last week on the ride back home. Among the still forms either sitting or standing, the bboys stuck out like little spots of energy. I decided to go over and say what's up. I needed some conversation to distract me from the pains coming from my frozen and aching body. I walked across the station, giving them a wave and a little bit of a two-step. 'bboy bboy," I said conspiratorily.

"Hey, what's up man?" the younger replied. "haha, white boy can dance huh?" Donnie said, couching his comment in a laughing tone. We exchanged high fives, we did the slap and pound thing. I actually pride myself on knowing what type of greeting to give to people depending on the situation (the slap and pound, the high five, the slap and shoulder pound, the hug, the half hug, or the handshake) and this seemed like the best option at the moment.

“Ah, not much. Just waiting for this fucking train,” I said, hoping to commiserate over something we both could understand, the awfulness of the public transit system. Sometimes it’s difficult to communicate verbally with other breakers. We are all so hyped up during the session, sweating bullets, thinking of move variations, checking out the guy in the corner doing a windmill nut-grab, that we can’t really muster the energy or the attention to have a coherent conversation. Plus I really don't know anything about these people except that they can do some awesome shit with their bodies.

We bullshitted a bit more about future dance sessions and then the train finally arrived, late as usual, and we hopped on. Once the doors swung shut and the chime sounded the question that both of them wanted to ask sprung forth, “so you white?” Donnie, the older brother, asked me.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” I answered awkwardly, giving a little chuckle and a shrug of the shoulders as if to say I couldn’t help the fact. “My dad is Polish”

“Polish?” Donnie interrupted, saying the word as if he had never heard it before.

“Yeah, you know eastern European, and my mom is English, Irish, that sort of thing.”

“So you all white.” Adam said in a definitive way. It was as if my description of my background didn’t make a difference. It didn’t matter what part of Europe my ancestors came from. I was white to these kids and that’s all that mattered. I realized at this moment that they probably didn't dealt with people who were “all white” very often in their lives. They might have friends with mixed backgrounds, know people with some caucasion blood, but not like me. This is one of the things I love about LA. If you walk around the city you notice that everyone is a blend of brown. Most people aren’t immediately distinguishable as a certain ethnicity type. They are a mixture of cultures. One of the first times I went to the breaking session, I went to sign my name in on the sheet. There was a space for ethnicity. I noticed that one person had simply written, East LA, as if this region of Los Angeles was its own distinguishable community. I paused for a moment, staring at this square where I was supposed to identify myself, and then I just left it blank, probably because I didn’t want to write the word 'white' which seemed so god-awful boring.

After teasing me a bit for my white boy status our conversation turned to other things. We talked about what we liked about bboying and different types of graffiti styles. Then the topic of food started and once again our differences started to surface.

“I’m going to go home and eat as much pork and rice as I can.” Donnie told me, running his hands through his hair which was sticking straight up from sweat. I noticed, not for the first time, that his hands were decorated with a snake-like tattoo, winding up his arm and through the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger.

“Yeah, I kind of sugar loaded right after we left, I had a twix and a power aid and now I’m not that hungry but I should probably have some real food.” The train shook and I reached over to grab at the pole set in the middle of the train-car.

“Is that a white boy thing,” Donnie said, laughing at my confectionary-laden diet.

At that moment I laughed, thinking that this was a silly comment and that eating candy was a ‘me’ thing, not a white thing. I have always had a sweet tooth and I can’t resist treating myself to some sugar, especially after I have worked out hard and felt that I earned a bit of indulgence. But once I got home and the conversation seeped further into my brain I realized that it is a white thing. Donnie and his brother aren’t spending money like I spend money. I probably take out around $20 a day from the bank. Some of this goes to groceries, toiletries, and other essentials, but a lot of it is spent on little things. I might buy a coffee at starbucks, or a cookie at subway, or a bottled water at 7-11 or a nice bottle of beer at the corner liquor store. None of these small, incidental purchases cost much but they end up totaling quite a bit of cash when I buy at least one, sometimes several of these items a day. Donnie isn’t spending money like this. He waits until he gets home to eat a meal and I’m sure he isn’t buying bottles of Evian after the break dancing session like I do. The other reason that consuming like I consume is stereotypically white is that the wealthier i.e. the whiter you are, the more likely you are to consume non-essential things on a routine basis. One of my friends lives part-time in Napa, an area of sprawling mansions and wineries. He shops at a store which is entirely devoted to the non-essentials. This store caters to the wealthy and stocks items such as: organic jams, fine cheeses, aged wine, Italian olive oil, natural sea salt, and dark chocolate. These are not things that one finds at your local supermarket. On a more mundane scale, many of the things I take for granted and rely upon as comforts are not enjoyed by the poor. Take coffee for instance. There is not a coffee drinking culture among poor people. I remember catering a lunch once and drinking a cup of coffee after we had eaten our meal. I was the only caterer who drank coffee. The other people considered it as simply something we served to the guests.

Poor people do not have the luxury of feeling tired or the leisure time to try to get rid of that feeling with a drink. Poor people simply stick it out. And to say that coffee is a cure for tiredness is a lie. Everyone who drinks coffee knows that if you are truly exhausted coffee isn’t going to improve your performance on anything. It might prevent you from falling asleep but its not going to help you ace the SAT if you’re taking the test at the end of an all-night bender. Coffee makes us perkier, dissipates low levels of sleepiness, and makes working a bit more tolerable because all of us have a little buzz going. It’s a non-essential that poor people do without.

Well Donnie and his brother got off at the next stop and I was left alone to my philosophical, bourgeois musings. Maybe Donnie and I come from different world with different habits I thought. But we both love being bboys and that’s all that matters.