Hate is one of the most destructive weapons of man. I unfortunately have had the opportunity in my life to see the different faces of loathing. Racial hate is one of the most ugliest mug’s of all. As a child, I grew up in a small town, in my school district had only about 400-500 students and this included preschool through highschool. Within this town there was very little cultural diversity, within the school district there was one African American and one Native American and the rest, including myself, were Caucasian. Then when I was 13, I moved to Los Angels and spent three years living there. Talk about being thrust into a culture shock. My highschool consisted of almost 4,000 students from every cultural background and only about 200 of them were Caucasian. During the next three years I learned many lessons on how hate and racism work. I was an awkward kid, definitely the outcast. Walking into my new school, I felt like a specimen beneath a microscope. After a growth spurt, I’d grown to be 5'10 ½, being a bit girl, somehow I became even more of a target for people. I walked away from many people trying to fight me, just because of the status they would gain for kicking my rear. I was used to being harassed, I’d learned to just take it with a grain of salt, walk away, and go cry it off later. It wasn’t that I was afraid, I was certainly big enough to defend myself, it was just that I was taught to never fight unless they threw the first punch, and people always tried to get me to throw the first punch, instead, I’d walk away.
Los Angeles is a chaotic epicenter. During my first year there, the LA riots occurred and a few years later, I was appalled to see my entire school break out into a racial riot. My best friend was African American and both of us were harassed for being friends but my own personal encounter with racial violence began innocently enough.
One day in my High School Drama Class, a Hispanic girl, I hardly knew, threw a piece of paper at me and the teacher spotted her and made her go pick it up. When she arrived she cussed at me and told me to pick it up. Annoyed, I told her to pick it up herself, she’d thrown it.
A simple, nothing encounter right? Ah, no, apparently, the girl was the leader of a girl gang and I had just disrespected her. Two weeks later, I was roller-blading down a major boulevard, jamming along to music with my walkman, when suddenly I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Before I knew it, someone had grabbed my ponytail and I was slamming onto the pavement. In a moment, about 4 or 5 girls were on me, kicking the living crud out of me. Since I had roller blades on I had no way to regain my footing so I curled into a ball and took it. My mind was a blur, at that moment all I knew was pain, suddenly, a car had pulled up to the curb and a black woman’s voice was screaming through a 2 inch crack in the passenger’s window “You little hoochies you leave her alone!” and suddenly, they were gone.
Looking over at the brown sedan idling next to me, I head the voice ask if I was okay, dazed, I nodded and the car pulled away. Sitting up, all I could do was not cry, something inside me told me I could not cry. Touching my face and bringing my hand away bloody, I looked around me and was appalled to see that about 50 people stood just across the Boulevard at a bus stop staring at me. Getting to my feet, I noticed too men staring, all of them had merely just stood there, watching me get beaten. That night, as I took a shower, clumps of my hair came out in my fingers and I just cried.
The next day, I staggered into school, it was obvious that I had been beaten up so my favorite teacher got to work on trying to get me to give up who had done it, when I had finally admitted who it was, the police was called.
I was terrified when I found this out, gangs mean guns and this could have seriously been a threat to my life. So, when they prompted for me to press charges I declined and just asked to talk to her in the office alone. With a lot of upraised eyebrows, my request was honored.
Walking in that room was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I wanted to talk to her, to get something through to her. Sitting down in front of the girl, I looked straight into her brown eyes and said something to the sort of, “Ya know, that was really uncool. I can understand if you don’t like me, but to kick my rear in an unfair fight over something so stupid as a piece of paper and you and I both know it wasn’t over that. I just want you to consider one thing, what if I had gone out and beat up someone you loved just because of the color of their skin? It would have been wrong and what you did was way uncool. In case your wondering, I’m not going to press charges, just for god’s sake leave me alone and don’t do this to anyone else, it’s wrong no matter how you look at it” and I left the room after saying my peace.
The girl never bothered me again. I had a few surreal instances where these tough gang leaders would come up to me and tell me that no one would ever mess with me again, they had my back because of the favor I had done for the girl who had beaten me down. Apparently, if I had pressed charges, she wouldn’t have graduated from High School, she would have gone to jail.
My other encounter with racism wasn’t directed at me but was something I observed. When I was 18, I was faced with the decision that, all the people that watched me get beaten, was faced with, should I get involved?
I was visiting a friend near San Diego, CA. My friend was gone and I was laying down when I heard a ruckus outside, the Samoan downstairs neighbor woman, was yelling at a little African American for some sort of vandalism, the kid ran off and I went back into my friends apartment still wondering what it had all been about. Suddenly there was screaming and yelling, I ran back out the door to see the Samoan woman being attacked by two African American women and a AA man. Without thinking, I ran down the stairwell and jumped into the middle of the fight, facing the Samoan woman, I put my arms around her and used my bulk to shelter her from the blows and backed her into a fence. The African American folks weren’t trying to hurt me, just pry me off her, but my intervention apparently gave them enough time to come to their senses and walk away. The Samoan woman and I were fine, other than a little scratched up and our hearts pumping with adrenaline. Some people have said I was stupid to get involved, but I have always considered this, I have been that person being beaten, it’s horrible, I would want someone to help if they could. But there is always the risk of being injured yourself, it’s just a choice that people have to make on their own.
I suppose the moral of this rambling post is that we are still very primal creatures, racism still thrives around us, the only way we’re going to beat it is to fight the good fight. People need to stop thinking in terms of color and think in terms of hearts, I don’t care what race or color a person is, I judge them by the person they are and for those of you people that do judge by skin color, just remember, you are harboring one of the most horrid evil’s the world’s ever seen in your soul, it will only harm you in the long run.
Thanks for listening and Take care!!!
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