I went to the BookExpo again on Saturday. While I was waiting in line to get a book signed for a friend — from an author who shall remain nameless in case the friend reads this post and has his or her surprise ruined — I stood behind a woman rolling a giant suitcase. One of the perks of the BookExpo is that basically every big name author who has a new book coming out autographs copies of his or her latest release. The books are free with a $1 suggested donation. There are people, like this woman, who bring their rolly suitcases and go from line to line, gathering new books and collecting author’s signatures. I generally only do this if I want the book itself, because having an author’s signature doesn’t particularly thrill me. I am highly advanced in my views of celebrities and their unimportance, yet, ironically, obsessed with joining their ranks.

As we waited, I struck up a conversation with this woman. Or rather, she struck up a conversation with me to which I reluctantly contributed. In lines and on airplanes I have a massive aversion to talking to the people next to me, a tendency that is surprising in light of the fact that my mom becomes instant best friends with anyone surrounding her in the grocery store checkout line. I think living in New York for 8 years left me with the belief that anyone who bothers to acknowledge the existence of those surrounding him must have some kind of serious mental illness. And at first, when I started talking to this woman with the gigantic rolly suitcase who spent the day getting autographs from minor literary celebrities (and minor celebrity-celebrities as well … she proudly showed me her “jump to the front of line ticket” for the Kevin Nealon signing later in the afternoon), I assumed that she must have some kind of serious mental illness as well. Luckily, she turned out to be a perfectly nice conversationalist who had a lot of interesting things to say about the publishing industry.

Somehow, as we were talking, the subject turned to our musical preferences. She mentioned that she stopped listening to music about ten years ago, when the “gangster rap thing started.” She used to be a big fan of reggae and early hip-hop, but she doesn’t like listening to music about killing people and degrading women. I quite like listening to music about killing people and degrading women, but I kept this information to myself. Sometimes it’s best to keep your cards close to your chest.

Anytime a conversation between two white people lands on the subject of gangster rap, it’s a pretty safe bet that one of the two parties will eventually find him or herself in uncomfortable territory. I felt a familiar sense of creeping dread as she told me her theories on how gangster rap was responsible for a dangerous culture of which we should be terrified. I tried to point out that there are positive things happening in the world, and she conceded the point with a great example.

“The other day, I was working downtown, and I saw a kid handing out free trees. And he was,”–her voice lowered so as not to inflame anyone around us who was not as culturally sensitive as we were–”black.”

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“It was,” she agreed. “And I thought, this is great. Why can’t we have more programs like this?”

“Programs where black kids hand out free trees?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That sounds like a pretty good program.”