“I ran into this girl, she said, “Why you always blaming? Why you can’t just face it? Why you always gotta be so mad?”
I got a lot to be mad about…”
Solange ~ Mad
I’ve actually lost count of the amount of stories I’ve read or clips I’ve watched over the past few months in regards to racist encounters. The tales are never ending and range in severity.
We’ve gone from the disgusting reversal of the promises made to the Windrush generation, to the death of 26 year old Botham Jean, minding his own business in his own home, only to be murdered by an off duty White police officer, claiming she didn’t realise it wasn’t her apartment….yeh, I’m still trying to work that one out too!
I’m sure you’ve seen at least one clip or heard of the police being called on people being Black whilst in a park, or a pool, or university, or sitting in a coffee shop, or a library, or on a train, or trying to enter their building…
I could go on but I’m guessing you get the picture. Many moons ago I saw a comedy sketch about something similar. Back then it was funny as it was an exaggeration of the abuse we were getting – now it’s actually turned into reality.
In Brooklyn a few weeks ago, a nine year old boy was out shopping with his family when he was accused of sexual assault by Teresa Sue Klein, aka Cornerstore Caroline. She claimed he brushed up against her and subsequently called the police. Thankfully it was caught on CCTV, and it clearly showed it was his backpack that had brushed against her as he passed her to exit the store.
As soon as I read it, the first thing to enter my head was this could have been the modern day Emmett Till. This boys saving grace is that we’re now in 2018 and cameras caught what had really happened.
You’d think that since 1955 a lot more would have changed, but we seem to be going backwards. Resident Chump and Brexshit have got folk feeling all kind of ways, and they’re mostly negative and inherently racist.
Last week 77 year old Delsie Gayle was racially abused on a Ryanair flight from Barcelona. David Mesher was upset that the pensioner didn’t move quickly enough when he wanted to get to his seat so he decided to let her and the flight know about it. He accused her of speaking to him in a foreign language and addressed her as an ugly Black bastard and a stupid cow.
The airline failed to act at the time, and the last I’d heard, they still hadn’t contacted Mrs Gayle. I have no doubt in my mind that if the same act were made by a Black person against an elderly White woman the results would have been much different. His ass would have been hauled off the plane and in a Spanish jail before you could say siesta!
I could go on with a list of examples but they all culminate in this. It doesn’t matter how much footage we have to prove we are the victims – there’s not much a White privilege card can’t cover. It has the ability to allow White people to give no apology or a half hearted one, and claim they are not racist despite the rhetoric that comes out of their mouths.
It has the ability to take the focus off of the crime they have committed and switch it so that the victim is made to look like a bad person who somehow deserved whatever they got.
It’s like a martini – it works anytime, any place, anywhere. As long as you’re lacking melanin you’re good to go! No need to worry about the effects their actions have on our young or old. Why would they concern themselves with the thoughts and feelings of a lesser being?
That’s what they have been believing we are for the longest while so why do we expect any different? In their eyes we should just be quiet and thankful we’re not out picking cotton, chopping cane or hanging from trees.
There are some things in life you can never truly understand unless you live it, but a little understanding goes a long way. You want to know why we’re so mad? Ignorance and stupidity. For centuries we have tried every which way to show you that the way you treat us is beyond way out of order. It’s disturbingly blatant, yet because it’s us it’s somehow ok and we should just suck it up.
You wanna be us; but you don’t want to be us!
We know it’s not all white people that hate, but the powers that be have shown throughout HisStory what they think of us. Amendments, laws, rules and regulations were made by privileged white men to protect their own kind, and I honestly don’t see any major breakthroughs in our “relationship” without some kind of revolution as a resolution. #IMO
We’re nearing the end of Black history month, and as I’ve already debated the whole ‘allocated month’ shit, I won’t go back there fully, except to say my history will never be confined to one month. We’re rolling straight on through baby!
I will never be anything but proud to be black. I love my people, I love my culture and have no desire to lighten or whiten to fit in or deny who and what I am. I won’t be silent or silenced. Last night I watched The Hate U Give and I encourage everybody to go and watch it.
It hits upon a lot of home truths on both sides of the coin and the message is clear for those who choose to see it.
We’ve come some way, but definitely nowhere near where we should be and need to be as a people. T.H.U.G breaks it down and highlights it beautifully. We need to stop the fighting between ourselves as we’ve got a big enough problem to deal with and we’re fundamentally making the job easier for them.
R.I.P to all those who have lost their lives this week
I’m sure you’ve heard someone at some point say, “You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had!” Well for me this shit seems to be standard procedure. Seriously, I sometimes wonder if I’m being tested, and if so, what the hell for? What prize do I win at the end, because it had better be a bloody doozie!
It’s part of the reason why I wrote Friend Or Foe, Let Them Go!. I get enough BFD from supposed family and trying to make it through the day in general – I don’t need it from those who I choose to have in my life. I should point out that there are different strains and various degrees of BFD – I’m allergic to all. I’ll leave this weeks shenanigans for another day, but I will share with you something that happened a few weeks ago.
There’s a perception that most Black people tend to give their children ‘funny’ names. That wasn’t so in my case. In fact if you saw mine or my siblings names on paper you’d be forgiven for thinking we were of Caucasian persuasion.
Hailing from Caribbean descendants there’s no surprise about our surnames though – I think we can safely decipher where they came from, but again that’s another story for another day…
I knew I really wanted to have children. Boy or girl I was good as long as she or he were healthy, I was happy. I couldn’t wait to have my babies and was one of those who found out what I was going to have. It gave certain people time to get their head around it not being their first choice, and for me to compile a list of names for my impending bundle of girly joy.
I don’t know about you other parents out there, but I thought long and hard about what I was going to name my kids. My own name isn’t the most exciting or exotic, but it has meaning and I love it. I wanted to give my girls a name they could love too, and I had succeeded…until a few years ago.
My eldest, who will be 19 in October, has recently finished her A levels but decided against going to university. That was absolutely fine with me, but she wasn’t going to be sitting her backside on the sofa watching Netflix and YouTube videos all day.
It was made clear she would have to do something, so she chose to look for a job and was eventually successful in finding one. It isn’t her first job, but it’s her first full time office job, and for someone her age it’s good money.
My daughters name is Isis, and before anyone asks the question (again!) of didn’t I think about what I was calling her, I’d ask you to check the above paragraph at her age. She’s 19 next month. She was around before all of the Islamic State debacle kicked off. There could be no further comparison between the two.
She was named after a Goddess, and a badass one at that! She was called “The One Who Is All” and “Isis The All Goddess”. Her name literally means Queen of the Throne. She was the model on which future generations of female deities in other cultures were to be based. She was the goddess of the moon, motherhood, fertility, magic, death, healing and rebirth and the first to walk amongst her people and teach them many skills….and you wanna question if I thought about her name? Did YOU think before you opened your mouth?
As I mentioned, Isis recently started a new job. It’s in customer service and she had to have a months training before starting on the floor. A couple of weeks in she was politely pulled to one side for a chat. She was told that she had done nothing wrong, but it was a heads up that when she eventually gets on the floor they would prefer it if she used her middle name so as not to offend any of the customers.
Do what now!?!
Those who know me know this piece of information did not go down well with me AT ALL!! When she said it, it took a second to register and then the vexation took hold! Who did they think they were? You gave her the job knowing full well what her name was and at no point during the interview did you say it would be an issue.
Why should she have to change her name to pander to those who are obviously lacking in intelligence and cannot differentiate between the name and the terrorists? Which of y’all sat there and decided that it even needed to be discussed?
Believe I was ready to go OFF! READY!! When I asked her what did she tell them I was praying she’d told them to (ever so politely) stick your job and look forward to hearing from my solicitor!
But she didn’t. She said that it was ok with her and she didn’t mind. At this point I’m watching her with mouth open and side eye in full lock. I asked her how can she not be offended and disgusted, and then she broke it down…
As upset as it makes me that her name causes the reaction that it does, I’m not the one who actually bears the name and has to live with it. It’s not that she doesn’t like or feels ashamed of her name, but imagine how it feels to have the jokes and jibes throughout school, college and work.
She’s sick of the attention and sniggers at her name badge and people outright telling her she shouldn’t be allowed to work with the name. She’s even had to ask her friends to not bawl out her name in airports.
It gets beyond tedious and she’s had enough. Her work colleagues call her by her name and she only uses her middle name for phone calls. When she was eventually officially told before starting on the floor, the manager was apologetic, told her it has absolutely nothing to do with her personally and explained exactly why they’d asked her to do it, which made sense to her and she was cool with it.
Me personally, I wouldn’t be having it. Despite how nicely you want to put it or how much time it saves or financial sense it makes to your company your ass would be going down – but that’s me, and it’s not my decision to make.
Had she been a few years younger and it happened she’d have had no choice in the matter. But she’s nearly 19 years old and I need to allow her to make her own choices and decisions, especially when it comes to something as personal as her name and her feelings.
I can only hope that she’ll feel a different way about it but I doubt it, and I fully understand that it’s her choice. Her employers, on the other hand, I don’t understand. They really don’t know how lucky they are trust me! It’s as if they were blessed by a Goddess!
Sincerest condolences to Errol Fenton and family on the loss of your beautiful, multitalented daughter Taymah. Way too young to be taken but she left her mark whilst she was here. R.I.P Queen.
R.I.P to all those who have lost their lives this week.
No Shame In My Game, Stay Blessed & #CelebrateLife
This was originally first published back in August 2018
I’m baaacckk! Didn’t mean to have a break for so long but I was looking for mo and jo and you’ll be happy to know I’ve caught up with them now.
Have you ever sat and wondered wtf is wrong with people? I’ve been asking that question a lot lately. I’ve recently had to address certain situations that in my mind are unnecessary, and an incident a couple of days ago flared up my allergies again. For those of you unaware, I’ve been diagnosed as allergic to bullshit, fuckery and I’m drama intolerant.
Cancer woke me up to how short and how precious life and time are and my allergies are a side effect of this. I know I’ve said it before but it’s the truth. You see things with fresh eyes and it’s actually crazy how much you let slide when you believe you have time on your side. I know I’m not perfect and I know not everyone is going to like me, but I’d like to think I’m a good person and try to do right by people. I don’t want for much and I’m probably one of the most low maintenance people you can get so it wasn’t hard re-evaluating what’s worth spending time on.
My husband thinks I’m too soft but, depending on the circumstances, I give people 3 strikes before they’re out, meaning if we’ve fallen out over something minor or I’ve tried over time to contact you I’ll give it 3 attempts and then I’m done. You can come talk to me but I’m not about trying to contact you, which I think is quite fair.
A few years ago I fell out with a friend. She made it abundantly clear that I had not given her enough attention and I was a bad friend. In my mind it wasn’t anything major, miscommunication at best. She had an issue with her back and I fully appreciate it was a hard time for her, but at the same time it wasn’t a touch on the shit I was dealing with that she had subsequently ignored. All that aside I still put in the obligatory 3 attempts of phone calls and texts to try to sort the situation but to no avail. In the last message I wished her well and moved on.
Recently, after having no issue with certain members of her family I was suddenly locked off. One minute we were fine, the next I was being blanked. At the same time I was trying to contact a mutual friend yet seemed to be getting the same response. On strike 3 she happened to reply and that’s when I realised I was having an allergic reaction. Silly me dived in without checking the ingredients. They were full of nuts…
I was informed that (wait for it) the reason why I’d been locked off is because I’m an aggressive texter. I was actually told that a text can ruin a good friendship and I should think about that because I could lose more. There was no ‘let me hear your side’. She had already believed what she had been told and was letting me know it was on me. Well I did think about it and have come to the conclusion that a text can’t ruin a true friendship but it can end a fake one in a heartbeat.
Now let’s be clear here, I know I have a potty mouth but in all of my messages to them not once was I rude or did I cuss them out. I was respectful and simply spoke my truth, asked questions where necessary, told them how I was feeling and ended each one with well wishes. They may call it aggressive – I call it real talk! Sometimes though the truth hurts, and I believe that’s what happened here. It’s possible my words could have been misinterpreted but here’s the thing, if you’re suppose to be my friend and it upsets you so much why not pick up the rahtid phone or come to my face and tell me?
I confess I questioned myself for a hot minute, but then I thought I’d try a little test…👀
I sent the mutual friend a text that I was thinking of sending to one of the “friends” I’d offended and asked her to vet it and give me her honest opinion on if she thought it was negative or aggressive.
She read it and agreed it was a nice, positive text. I then informed her that it was actually a copy of the one that I had already sent and was shut down over. Her response was maybe I should just leave it then…so “mutual friend”, they can get away with blatantly telling lies to you about what I’ve done and I’m to leave it, yet you have no problem in believing what they say about me and telling me how I’ve possibly offended them and what I should do.
Alrighty then!
Thankfully I have more than enough genuine, bonafide, ride or fucking die friends that are there for me 24/7, rain or shine. We build each other up, support each other’s goals and are woman or man enough to address any differences or queries like adults. I can guarantee you this shit would never happen with them. Ever! We’re too grown.
Ain’t nobody got time for fake ass friends and the Mean Girls shit, I left them days back in ‘91, so as much as they may like to think I feel a way, I really don’t. It’s the reason why I haven’t felt the need to contact her in 2 years and why I will continue to do the same with the rest of them. I can live with the worst thing they can muster about me being I’m an ‘aggressive texter!’ Got to admit that was the joke of the day! I’m actually trying to figure out if that’s the most petty and pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard from grown ass women and it’s come in real close.
Some people are only meant to be in your life for a season. Don’t beg or bow down, if it’s meant to be it will work itself out without the bullshit, fuckery and drama. If others don’t want to speak to you because of someone else’s opinion of you, or they spread idle gossip about you without finding out the facts and/or hearing your side, then they really aren’t your friends. If you can’t hold your own thoughts and judge me on our own friendship then why would I want to know you? We’re clearly on 2 different levels and I’m good with that.
Whatever you’re going through don’t let anybody dim your shine with their shade throwing. Question yourself and if you’re sure it ain’t you keep on moving and try to shine a little brighter and dazzle the fuck out of them! Listen to the talk and check on your strong friend. Stress is a killer and we’re not superhuman all the time, even if it looks that way on the outside. I’m thankful, grateful and blessed to have a network of real friends who do just that and vice versa. Also don’t believe the hype that your best friends are the ones you’ve known the longest. Some may well be, but go for quality over quantity every time!
R.I.P Dani Richardson. You were truly one of the most talented and genuinely nice men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. The party will be lively up there once you and the other legends get jamming!
R.I.P Aretha Franklin, Kofi Annan and all those who have lost their lives this week.
Mojo Flow, Stay Blessed & #CelebrateLife
It feels like I’m stating the obvious when I say it seems as if the world has truly gone mad. In fact I swear I’ve started a blog like this before. Everyday there’s some new addition to the ongoing madness that is residing all over the place. Even the remotest spot in the world can’t escape it, so it’s great when something nice comes along to raise people’s spirits and take their minds off of things – if only for a day. #WeddingOrFACup
I know there is a lot of worldwide love for the royals, but despite being born and bred in England, from a young age I honestly didn’t understand what their purpose was and I honestly still don’t. I mean, what do they actually do? And why do taxpayers have to subsidise some of their living costs when they have more than enough wealth to help themselves? I’m not totally ignorant, I know they generate tourism and a few have/had jobs in the forces etc, but not all and what do the rest do? And exactly how much wealth does tourism generate?
It’s not that I hate them and you can’t control what you are born into, but I think they’re an outdated entity who, with the world being the way it is right now, could quite easily give back to their subjects and help fix their country without putting too big a dent in their vast pockets.
There’s only one member of the royal family that I paid any attention to and that was Princess Diana. She always seemed like the realist of the bunch (which she proved with ‘that’ interview – we love real talk!), and she was the first royal I’d ever seen truly interact with everyday people and not look like she wanted to run and decontaminate herself as soon as it was over. She had that human touch where the rest were as stiff as their waxworks. I really felt for William and Harry when she died. It’s hard enough dealing with dysfunctional families and grief at any time let alone as a child in the public eye.
Fast forward a few years and here they are, both grown and in love – and who doesn’t love love?…well, plenty to be honest! It seems there are some not so keen on the bloodline being tainted with melanin. Oh well! Such is life! You can’t help who you fall for and unfortunately you can’t pick your family either. And what a family on both sides!
If you pay any attention to the news you can’t escape hearing about the scourge that is the Markle family. To put it bluntly, what a bunch of cunts! Her siblings are phenomenal! If we’re honest we’ve all got at least one family member who fits that description, but she got a job lot. She had already made a name for herself in her own right and now she’s topped it off by marrying a prince and their jealousy is palpable.
Their actions have been atrocious and I can’t help but feel sorry for the poor cow…but keeping it 100, myself and the majority of Black people breathed a collective sigh of relief when the stories that appeared in the press were all about the White side. REAL TALK! Can you imagine if the drama was on her mothers side? You’d never hear the end of it and I can just see the headlines now; ‘Pass The Duchess Pon The Lefthand Side’. Personally I would have loved if her mother walked her down the aisle. She’s the only one who has shown dignity throughout, but to each their own I guess.
Whichever way you look at it history is about to be made and an age old monarchy is about to be hit with a fresh, new breed! As a woman of colour, newlywed and a true lover of love (no matter what mix), I’m happy for them both and will be tuning in to see the sights.
I’ll be goddamned if I’ll be standing with the masses to catch a glimpse though, despite it being right on my doorstep. I really can’t do crowds and Windsor is peopley enough on an average day let alone today. I hope they can prove the doubters and naysayers wrong and it lasts a lifetime…or at least as long as the disruption it’s caused to my life! I don’t mean to bitch (👀) but it’d be nice to get back to normality and pop down the road to Waitrose and Thai Terrace in peace.
Good luck and congratulations Harry & Meghan.
R.I.P. To all those who have lost their lives this week.
Love Love, Stay Blessed & #CelebrateLife
It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy and blogging, for me, is a welcome release. Unfortunately I’m dealing with an ongoing issue that, to be completely honest, is draining but necessary.
The endless emails I’ve had to write took the joy out of me wanting to pick up my iPad and reel off to whoever chooses to actually READ my thoughts. (And I truly do appreciate and applaud you all – you’re a dying breed!). Then after watching the news recently I felt the old spark return and compelled to write.
You see part of my problem is having to deal with various government bodies and if I ever needed a picture of how fucked up this cuntry can be I have been shown with clarity. These recent events have just confirmed that they really are incredible. And not in a good way.
For those of you who pay any attention to the news, and especially those who still believe the lie being told and sold to the masses that Grate Britain isn’t run by a bunch of incompetent racists, your eyes should have been well and truly opened over the past couple of weeks. You will notice I’ve always spelt it as Grate Britain and now you know why. They constantly have the ability to rub you up the wrong way.
Yes, it’s the place of my birth and there are far worse places I could have been born in, trust me I’m aware and thankful, but that doesn’t mean because there are worse places I should accept their bad. I fully expect to receive the obligatory eye rolls and shouts of ‘sod off back to where you came from then!’, but I honestly couldn’t give a fuck.
You’ve gotta hand it to team GB – they’ve got balls! They’ll take pride in regaling on the past but conveniently omit the darker parts – pun fully intended – and tell us we need to let things go. The reality is a cuntry that at various time’s throughout history have invaded almost 90% of the planet doesn’t make you great, it makes you opportunist bullies and users.
You don’t even have to dig too deep to discover how the majority of the businesses that made you “great” were funded by the blood, sweat and tears of a lot of black and brown folk – you know, somewhere around the time you were being paid compensation for your loss of livestock after getting rich from years of free labour.
Fast forward to the present day and here you are again trying it! Only this time it’s not as easy to sweep us under the carpet. You colonised and created the commonwealth to benefit you all the while maintaining you were doing a good thing to help out those poor, unfortunate and uncivilised black souls. Thank God for the British rule. However did we manage before you came along?
It’s nice to jet off to your holiday home in the Caribbean to top up your tan and sip on a rum punch, yet when the storm comes and we’re looking at you for assistance we’re somehow not sheltered under your umbrella-ella-ella-eh EH? And you wonder why they took so long when the hurricanes struck! That’s the problem with sticking your oar in and announcing your authority. At some point people are going to question your interference and ask you to show and prove.
YOU asked for the so called ‘Windrush Generation’ to come over here and they came to meet a cold front on many levels yet knuckled down and grafted hard to build you up again. There’s no denying their contribution and this is how you repay them. When I hear stories of people denied cancer treatment or stuck in the Caribbean unable to make it home for their mothers funeral it makes my blood boil and my heart sink.
You’d rather real terrorist threats stay here yet deport people who have proved their worth and dedication for decades. At the very least they could have kept the boarding cards as memorabilia before putting them in a shredder and throwing them out with the rubbish, but it says it all really.
You may have offered up Amber Rudd as the sacrificial lamb and replaced her with a token figure to try to placate us, but that don’t mean a thing. This shit runs deep and has been flowing for a lot longer than I’d realised. Now they want to add insult to injury and have voted against public disclosure. Why Grate Britain? What more have you got to hide? It can’t be much worse than what we’re aware of surely, and if it is you may as well rip the bandage off and fix the issue. It’s ok – we’re not going anywhere.
3 years in remission today! Woop! Woop!
R.I.P little cuz Aliyah and to all those who have lost their lives this week
I remember when I was younger being told that one day I would look back and realise that the school years were the best years of my life. I’m not too sure about that. They were great in the sense that I was free of bills and major responsibilities, but I’d hardly call them the best. They were ok.
I most definitely wasn’t one of the ‘hot’ or ‘popular’ girls but I wasn’t a loner. I had a good mix of friends/acquaintances, a few I’m still in contact with on Facebook albeit not very often. Recently I received an invite to attend a secondary school reunion and with that in mind and current stories floating around, it got me thinking of an incident from my school days.
Before I tell you my tale I’ll recap on the stories that caught my attention. The first is of Rufaro Chisango, a Nottingham Trent University student who, as the media put it, ‘believes’ she was targeted with racial abuse. Now considering she was the only Black person on her floor and they were stood right outside of her room chanting ‘We hate the Blacks’ and other such ish, AND she’s got it on video, I would say it’s more than a belief.
This happened on a Monday evening and was reported straight away, by Wednesday night she had heard nothing back so took to Twitter. Funnily enough Nottingham Trent took an interest after that and 2 men have since been suspended and arrested. Lovely. But if she hadn’t taken to social media to highlight this when were they going to make the time to address it?
The next one is of a student at De Montfort University who was invited out on a girls night by course mates only to have them sing Eeny Meeny Miny Moe to her. One then later went on to call her a n****r to her face. She reported the incident but has since been suspended herself because of a second, apparently more serious accusation of intimidation on her part. The university says, ‘It is an extremely sensitive issue. There are a number of aspects which need to be explored.’
I totally understand that, but what I don’t understand is why it took over a month for the Black students complaint to be addressed, and when it was they focused on the second complaint made afterwards by the White girls and suspended her. If accusations have been made by both sides why not suspend them all until their investigation is complete?
The last being the one of seven white teenagers who chained a Black student to a lamppost and whipped him in a mock slave auction. He was hit with sticks and racially abused as they discussed their trade. In response to this they were all suspended for 2 weeks whilst 3 of them were expelled by the headteacher, however that decision was overturned by the board of governors in accordance to their statutory procedure, so the outcome has been they get to do the crime and get 2 weeks ‘time’. 2 weeks off school.
I’m sure they were absolutely devastated and have definitely learnt their lesson. They get to breeze back to school and think nothing of it. Has anyone taken into account how the victim feels having to come into school and face them 5 days a week knowing his suffering meant fuck all in the long run?
But that’s just the thing – our suffering means nothing to them in the long or short run. The same old rules and statutory procedures were not made with us in mind. I guarantee that if a bunch of Black boys had done the same to a White boy there would be no hesitation in expelling all of them.
It would be nice to think that the parents of those boys spent time out explaining how wrong their actions were but I highly doubt that happened and I’m not concerning myself with it. The best thing we can do is not sit around and presume others are raising their kids right.
I’m not sure how the victims parents have dealt with this situation, but if it were my child they would not be stepping foot back in that school and shit would be going down! I really don’t business. Yes, I know I’m repeating myself when I say this, but we need to prepare our kids for today’s times and they need to know OurStory. Don’t sugarcoat because the other types won’t be and I’m telling you they are looking for their time to come around again. #ItsAllJustALittleBitOfHIStoryRepeating
Now for my tale. I went to a predominately White school, with Asians being the largest minority and then Blacks. I was one of only two Black girls in my year, but by the time I left there were a fair amount representing. There were more boys in comparison but not that many. Personally I didn’t experience a lot of racism in school but there is one incident that I’ll never forget.
We lived in Chalvey and our school was in the next village of Cippenham, and the difference between the two places back then was noticeable. Chalvey had a majority of ethnic minorities and Cippenham was predominantly White. Back in the day we weren’t getting dropped off to school by our parents or taking a bus – we had to walk our ass through Hell or high water.
By the time I was a couple of years into secondary school there were a fair number of us (Black children) who had grown up together so we’d meet up on route and roll in together – safety in numbers and all that! For those of you old enough I’m sure you can remember starting secondary school. The kids in the years above you seemed grown in comparison to your just left middle school self. They have that air of authority because they’ve been there that little bit longer than you and naturally some like to show it. This was the case at my school too, only because they now had this invasion of Black boys it was open season on the brothers.
There was one particular group who were relentless in their taunts, bullying and verbal abuse. There’s no 2 ways about it – they were blatantly racist. Now you need to remember that the Black boys they were picking on were just that – boys. Puberty hadn’t set in yet and the only threat they bore was the colour of their skin. They used to literally chase them down, but that was soon to change.
A group of our peers got told about what was going on and weren’t having it! They sprung a little surprise on them after school and let’s just say they proved that day that White men can jump! There was no real damage done – a few got a little shaken up but nothing major, just enough for the fuckers to never try it again! The irony is one of the abusers now has a Black partner and has tried to make amends to a couple of them. He doesn’t understand why they are not receptive.
It could be the fact that it didn’t occur to him to do it 20 odd years ago, albeit better late than never, but he still puts it down to schoolboy ‘banter’ that should be water under the bridge. What he fails to see is his banter was their nightmare. It wasn’t fun for them you fuckwit, like it wasn’t fun for you when you were chased by a bunch of bigger boys that had you giving Usain Bolt and Woody Harrelson competition. You know you were out of order, own it! If you can’t come correct don’t come at all and even then, if you do, don’t expect to be forgiven.
I was lucky to grow up in a time where we had each other’s back – young, old, big or small. The sad truth is that if the same were to happen to a bunch of kids nowadays their peers probably wouldn’t be coming to help them but to take advantage somehow. Somewhere along the line the message of unity has been lost.
The above goes to show that it doesn’t matter how young or vulnerable they are they’re not exempt from the hatred. Reading, writing and arithmetic are not the only lessons they are learning. What makes it worse is the fact that a lot of our youth are helping the haters by living under the misguided sense that they own the streets and not realising that we are stronger and can achieve more together. It’s senseless and pathetic and I honestly fear for my daughters innocently getting caught up in those idiots escapades. They’ve got it hard enough already.
Parents I’m hollering at you…again! I’m talking specifically to the ones who don’t even try or turn a blind eye. No one said life was going to be easy and we’ve gotta do what we can to survive, but some of y’all are making it even harder for us by encouraging or enabling the bullshit.
EACH ONE TEACH ONE! It’s not just about reading, it’s about life!
R.I.P to all those who have lost their lives this week.
Can anyone tell me what happened to Spring?☃️
Each One Teach One! Stay Blessed & #CelebrateLife