Labels

So, this has been probing my mind for a while and I think I'm ready to actually say it...or write it (either way i'm expressing how I feel). Now the other day, a man was washing his car, minding his own business as he scrubbed the dirt off his automobile, and out of the blue, a car stopped right in front of his driveway. Now its ordinary for cars to ride up and down on this busy street this man lived on, but there was something about this car in paricular.

Inside there was man and two younger kids in the back. Now keep in mind, these kids looked fairly young around 5 or 6 and this man stopped his little car by this man who was washing his car. The man and his children were Caucasion and the man washing his car was African American and what happened next will stay on the mind of the African American man for a very long time. The caucasion man pointed at the African American man, like he just spotted a large deer standing and eating grass, and he called out to his kids.

"Hey kids! Look a n***er!" The African American stopped the swirling motion he was making on his car and froze. The mans words entered his ears but his mind was still processing what he just said. He heard the screeching of tires and his body quickly thawed. He ran into his garage and got out a medal machine. When he returned the man and his two children were gone.

Rage consumed the man's body and he stood there looking at the road. He than looked at the machine in his hands, shook his head and quickly returned it back to his garage.

When I was told this story the first thought that came into my head was, "That B***ard!" than the next thought was, "That racist son of a b***h!" than after that was, "Those poor kids." You would never think that in this day and age people still go around thinking like that but, the truth of the matter is, they do. Children learn from their parents and the people around them and what kept going around in my mind was my third thought. Those poor kids. They have a father teaching them things like that, teaching them that its alright to say the word n***er or probably say other bad words to different races or religions.

Its sad and heartbraking that narrow-minded people think this way, think that they are at the top of the food chain, that they are...supreme. Its sad and heartbraking. What would you do if someone, a random person who doesn't even know you, called you a n***er or white trash. Called you a lame, a terrorist, a nerd, fake, a race that you're not, something that your not, nappy, or just plain old ugly. How would you feel if someone put a label on you thats not even you? How would you react?

That man, the African American man...he grabbed a gun. Now I'm not sure if he would have used it if the man in the car had stayed but i'm confident he wouldn't. Maybe it's because there were children in there or he was going to be the bigger man and not use violence but I just know he wouldn't because that man, my father, just wouldn't.