What is happening right now reminds me of that movie I watched a few years aback, can't remember the name but I do remember the plot. As usual its starts with an attack on America, a chemical attack of soughts but no one seems to know the source. Everyone was just going about their every day lives when suddenly one by one people just stop what they were doing, stared off into the distance, took in a big gulp of air and them proceeded to either kill themselves or whoever was closest to them at the moment. What I gathered from the movie is that the earth felt that it was getting over populated so it created this toxin and released it through the plants and into the air.
What I am getting at is that all over the world there seems to be some kind of uproar and it stems really from the thing that has been hanging over everyone's head since the abolishion of slavery.
Really, how is this word still in circulation. I mean I'm not going to come on the net and pretend I haven't seen or heard, but we are in 2015 now, yet the past is still haunting us in the form of ignorant people which is going to be the death of a lot of humans going from what I am seeing and reading in the newspaper and on the news.
In some peoples mind, "birds of a feather flock together" is prominent when it comes to things that are seen, done or heard that isn't the norm for them so they use the cruelest words in the vocabulary to describe them so that they can feel like they accomplished something by saying it. I am ignorant now when it comes to a few things but I can tell you that when I was younger I was even more ignorant. For instance with all the reading I did I always came across articles and such with the words "Racist, Racism, Redneck, Coolie, Nigga" and I never really paid them any attention. This silent war on race that seems to have been brewing for a while only became clear to me when someone picked up the pie marked 'black girl' on it and threw it in my face. That term isn't very popular in Trinidad because really, to me using a color to describe a person is just weird because we have sun here year round so a persons face might be dark brown but when you look at their legs they are honey brown since they wear a lot of long pants. So lets just we are multi-colored down here.
Yes, so my first brush with racism. First day of Secondary school. Honestly I had a sense it was coming just from the way everyone started acting around me when I got my S.E.A results stating what school I passed for. When the Principal handed me that piece of a paper I have to admit I was confused because I was only really interested in the 2 schools I told my mother to apply for. Cowen Hamilton and St Stephens College. I had worked my butt off even though I usually winged it through exams. So I sat there in the office looking at my marks, perfect marks I might add, and the name of the school which I had never heard of in my life. After that it all went down hill.
The area I lived in is predominantly populated with people of African decent so every time someone asked me what school I passed for I always got the same response and expression.
I only got an explanation when my aunt heard and started laughing, so she said, "Dem Indian goin and kill yuh down dey in dah bush", and that went on and on. From then I was totally and utterly freaked out. I kept dreaming of running through the bush to only end up standing in front of an old wooden building surrounded by colorful flags, bush and a river next to it. Boy did I cry and beg after that. South Korean actors and directors would have been proud of me with the way I kneeled and prostrated myself to my mother not to send me to that school. And in true mother fashion I think she enjoyed the grovelling but still told me no.
First day, I'm walking around the compound and feeling like my heart is about to explode. Normal reaction with first days in a new school, that and the fact that I was like that one chocolate chip in a chewy granola bar. That's when I realized the people I grew up around had a major issue with people of East Indian decent. Never bothered me before so I really opened my eyes and ears that day and took in my surroundings. Now this is where the pie got thrown in my face. Everyone was placed in certain classes so we all made our way there. Once seated I did my usual thing and started to day dream since I wasn't up for making friends just yet. But in between talking to myself in my head I was sought of listening to a conversation happening to the left of me but I only gave them my full attention when I heard a girl say, "She was all up my face gettin on like I do she sometin," then another girl asked, "wait, wha dis girl look like?" she replied, "you know, a little shorter than me and she black, one of dem nigga girls from princes town, like dat girl," and she had the nerve to point her finger in my direction.
I believe now that I have had time to look through the situation again, I can confidently say that that girl was just as ignorant as I was. She must have grown up around family members or friends who used words like those a lot and loosely so it was okay for her to repeat something she knew nothing about. Take in mind this girl was 100% of Indian decent. There is this thing in the Caribbean with girls who believe that if they are a little bit paler than everyone else it automatically gives them some sought of pip. Like it makes them better. I can't really help you understand it better than that.
This girl was pale so that made her delusional. The hair flipping, avoiding of the sun, speaking like her nose was clogged and in my opinion was on some sought of depressant because she had some weird highs and lows. Anyway, the girls she were talking to seemed to have been a little more educated than her because when I turned around and pinned them with my death stare, three got up and walked away and then other two focused their attentions on something at the far side of the classroom. She realized she royally fucked up when I got up, folded my arms and leaned back on my desk, not saying a word. The reason I didn't immediately cuss her out was that if we had gotten held up by a teacher in between the cuss out it would have been her word against mine and I don't really like finding myself in those situations.
But usually in a situation where you are caught talking ill about someone and they confront you you find some round about way to get yourself out of the ass whooping you are bound to get.
This chick laughed. I mean Disney Character Evil laugh, looked around the classroom and then back at me and then said, "Well you are black arn't you? I mean look at your hair."
I was so shocked I forgot my anger for a minute just to stare at the rare species that was that girl. I was like...
for about ten minutes straight. I didn't have enough time to recoup because bell rang and the teacher came in. Lets just say my need to make friends kept depreciating every day. That and the name calling out the side of peoples mouth kept getting worse because I might have been to stunned to react but other students weren't. Fights broke out, gangs and shit started forming and a fear of the African children became a normal thing because, this is the words of a teacher, "you never what you black children are going to do next."
I made some good friends in my time there, don't get me wrong but they also took what little innocence I had about my world. I always thought that in the Caribbean it was one love. Racism isn't suppose to have a place here. We practically have every color, creed and race here so what exactly are we all trying to prove?
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