The first time I fell a victim of obvious racial abuse was in traffic: I was driving down the beltway and for some reason I got into a lane struggle during rush hour. He cut me off and so I honked persistently at him and at the first chance i had, I cut him off needless to say it was a horrible game we were playing. The road had begun to clear out and he 'had the last laugh' and cut in front of me one more time and I laughed then without warning he raised his hand out his window and saluted the third Reich salutation. 'Wow! in America?' I thought. You see I was raised in Nigeria, one hundred and thirty million people and everybody black, never happened before.
The second time I experienced racial abuse, I was on my way home from work on a Friday and it was pretty late. I was about to cross the street when a car filled with Caucasians as young as myself almost hit me and then they slowed down and one of them hurled saliva at me but missed and I heard another call me N*&&@%. I had never heard that word in that way, I mean on MTV and BET it was harmless and fun, in fact back in Africa it was a good thing when we were very young before we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle.
I could not help but smile, because I was amazed at the level of ignorance. I did not know they still used words like that, after thinking about it I realized that he meant for it to hurt me. Now that was impossible, not because I was educated or anything else but because I had never heard it before, at least not in that context. It had no power over me, I had never been oppressed or felt oppressed. Why do we let these words hurt us? Why do we empower the ignorant ones among them get an advantage over us? We have the power to become numb to the effect of words and like actions.
I also apologize to every African born and raised in the United States under the law of prejudice where the feeling of inequality and inferiority is drilled into your subconscious so that words like that and actions like the ones I explained above remind you of a perilous past, I apologize that though born princes and free men the ancestors were taken far from home and made slaves but we must remember one thing: we have overcome, we lost for hundreds of years but it takes just one victory to overcome them all. Today is the day of victory, it was easy for me to laugh at those things and to be unaffected by them, it might bit more difficult for you but you have the power, chose to become unperturbed by such nuisance. Take the power from them, it is yours!
The second time I experienced racial abuse, I was on my way home from work on a Friday and it was pretty late. I was about to cross the street when a car filled with Caucasians as young as myself almost hit me and then they slowed down and one of them hurled saliva at me but missed and I heard another call me N*&&@%. I had never heard that word in that way, I mean on MTV and BET it was harmless and fun, in fact back in Africa it was a good thing when we were very young before we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the struggle.
I could not help but smile, because I was amazed at the level of ignorance. I did not know they still used words like that, after thinking about it I realized that he meant for it to hurt me. Now that was impossible, not because I was educated or anything else but because I had never heard it before, at least not in that context. It had no power over me, I had never been oppressed or felt oppressed. Why do we let these words hurt us? Why do we empower the ignorant ones among them get an advantage over us? We have the power to become numb to the effect of words and like actions.
I also apologize to every African born and raised in the United States under the law of prejudice where the feeling of inequality and inferiority is drilled into your subconscious so that words like that and actions like the ones I explained above remind you of a perilous past, I apologize that though born princes and free men the ancestors were taken far from home and made slaves but we must remember one thing: we have overcome, we lost for hundreds of years but it takes just one victory to overcome them all. Today is the day of victory, it was easy for me to laugh at those things and to be unaffected by them, it might bit more difficult for you but you have the power, chose to become unperturbed by such nuisance. Take the power from them, it is yours!
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