Black and White and Newport Lights

I swung into a gas station on the way out to the bar to purchase a luxury items these days that comes in the form of Camel Light cigarettes. There were two gentlemen in front of me conversing with the cashier as I stated my order and waited for the transaction to complete.

Gentleman #1 " How come his cigarettes are .50 cents cheaper then mine?"
Gentleman #2 "It's cause they know its mostly black people smoke Newport's and it is another way they keep us broke."
Cashier "Fucking right white people get all the breaks."

I know at this point I should probably just pick my cigarettes up off the counter and continue on my way.

But I have never been very good at following that little voice in my head.

So I decided to have a mini-seminar on the spot about economies of scale, the effects of pricing to mass markets and value added processing.

For some reasons these three gentlemen and the crowd formin around us refused to buy into the theory that if you sell more of a product you can gain efficiencies and lower price or that the adding of menthol requires extra processing and additional cost that is passed onto the consumers.

Gentleman #1" If menthol makes it cost more how come Kool's are .75 cents cheaper then Newport's."

Brianinmpls "Perhaps the tobacco used in Newport's is of better quality then Kool's, or perhaps if you feel Newport's pricing strategy is unfair you could switch brands then you would be paying .25 cents less then I am paying and this entire conversation would be pointless."

In the silence that followed this remark I quickly realized that I was the only white person in the store and tension was rather getting thick.

In the interest of not getting my ass kick or being the cause of race relations collapsing across the Midwest I decided on an appeasement exit strategy.

I said, "But you are right fuck whitey."

And walked out of the store.

* I hate appeasment I think alot of what is wrong in our country is because we tell each other what we want to hear rather then deal with underlying issues.
* I hate that I have been smoking again.