This post will get filed under Why Astoria Is the Greatest Place on Earth…but sometimes it’s not.

It’s not a big secret that even though Astoria is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city, there’s also a strong undercurrent of racism, specifically against African-Americans. The logic seems to be: Brown-skinned people are bearable, because they work hard. Black-skinned people are bad, because they probably come from not-far-away Queensbridge, and will rob you.

Before I moved into my apartment up near Ditmars, my landlady-to-be, an 80-year-old Italian woman, asked my future roommate suspiciously, “Zora–is that a black name?”

A year before that, I’d been looking for an apartment with my boyfriend and another friend, but the friend was out of the country. “This friend of yours–what is he?” brokers would ask. “Can we see a picture?” One totally copped to the illegality of this, but said that landlords would never deal with him again if he brought in a black prospective tenant. In our case, we honestly replied that our friend’s name was Wilson Jacob, and he was born in Oklahoma. (We gloated a bit at our landlord’s surprise when he discovered Wilson was a fairly dark-skinned Indian. Then the landlord’s wife offered him a sweater, because he “must not be used to the cold.”)

These issues didn’t come up again once I started living with a Greek-American–just one parakalo paves the way in Astoria. But one night in an old apartment (where our landlord’s name was Hercules, no less), we heard the doorbell ring downstairs. There was the sound of our landlord’s aged non-English-speaking mother shuffling to the front door, then frantic cries of “Black man! Black man!” as she ran back in her apartment and shut the door.

Turns out the visitor, a delivery man, was looking for us. He looked surprisingly patient when I finally opened the door and apologized profusely.

All this is leading up to:

Yesterday I voted, along with immigrants from all over the world, young people and old people. And I felt, for the first time in my whole life (much of which has been spent envying the political systems, sensibilities and priorities of other countries), a real twinge of patriotism. And I felt it even more strongly when Barack Obama was declared president-elect.

But Astoria was an eerily quiet place last night . There were no cheering throngs in the streets. As I biked home, the sidewalks were empty. The only person I saw was my across-the-way neighbor, a McCain supporter, dejectedly walking his dog. Sitting in an office today and hearing other people talk about the jubilant crowds in Fort Greene and Harlem and Times Square, I’m sad to have missed the raw excitement.

But even if Astoria didn’t want to celebrate with me last night, I’m still overjoyed.

Black man! Black man!

Hell yes.