Una Palone Blanca

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The writer James Baldwin was a black man who grew up with virulent racism in America's deep south in the 1940s.

His novels were my teenage introduction to gay literature - and almost surreptitiously to African American literature. I'd recommend it to everyone.

His journey out of the mental scarring of his Harlem childhood was difficult, but one moment in it seems revealing. He'd casually chatted with a stranger in a car park, and later in the day...was amazed when he couldn't remember whether the man was black or white.

Actually I'd always doubted the story - Baldwin was a writer after all, and anecdotes are almost always exaggerated.

But today...I was waiting for a friend outside a pub. I looked in and saw someone sitting in our customary place - or at least their teeshirted arm.

I spent several long seconds trying to work out whether the arm belonged to my friend, thinking it was probably too thin, and the hairs too long, and the nails didn't look right. Then I remembered.

The arm belonged to a white guy, and my friend is black.

This could just be Kapitano having a senior moment. But if not, I hereby christen it a Baldwin Moment.

The moment when you realise the whole race and skin tone thing had completely slipped your mind.

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