THE WEIRD ARCHANGEL MEDIA.

I am fully aware that nothing good has ever come from the words, “I am not racist”, and that this isn’t how you expected this blog to begin, but here we are!

I am not a racist

I repeat, I AM NOT RACIST!

You will be happy to know that after thousands of enquiries from people I have encountered over the years, I have confirmed that I am in fact not racist. I also happened to ask a close friend of mine as part of my survey, and she asked me in a very concerned tone if I was high on drugs. She then muttered something along the lines of, “I always suspected he would go insane.”

Those two comments were all the confirmation I needed.

Here is a story for you. You get to decide whether my reaction and my feelings of a certain recurring incident are valid.

This specific story is not one of those life changing, and dramatic “Hollywood will make a movie out of this” stories. Neither is it one of those, “this will be told to future generations as one of the most shocking moments of the 21^st Century” stories.

This has happened on numerous occasions, in different locations, and around different people every time.

Picture this, it is 5pm, and I am getting off of work and I’m on my way home. I get in the bus and wait for it to depart.

In enters someone black. They might be a man, or a woman, or a non-binary person. They might be a he, she or they, I don’t care. That’s not what you first see. What you first see, is a black person.

This person sits down, like they own the freaking bus, get their phone out and start playing something on it. It might be a football match, might be music, maybe they are on YouTube or TikTok, or maybe they are on a call.

Your first thought might be, “Why are you so concerned about someone playing anything or making calls on their phone?” These are very good sentiments, but you see they aren’t using earphones or earbuds, no.

Whatever they are playing on their phone is blasting at full volume for all of us to hear.

Here is the thing, none of us, absolutely none of us in this freaking bus wants to listen to your crap at 5 PM, when we just had a long day at work. We all want to go home and relax. Let our hair down! Chill! Cool down! Whatever you want to call it, that’s what every single person in the bus would like to do, and they would like to do it in peace and quiet.

Like everyone else, I find myself sneering at how obnoxious and rude this creature is. I find myself getting slowly disgusted by this uncivilised and uncouth behavior, and right as my face is about to fully express the disgust, I lock eyes with this 60-something year old white lady.

We look at each other for a couple of seconds before I realise that we both have the same look of disgust. I slowly “fix” my face while still looking at her and she gives me this knowing look, as if to say, “Now you understand why some people don’t like your people, right?”

At this point, you’re thinking that I turned away from her, but I didn’t. I smiled back in acknowledgement. I needed her to know that I see her pain and frustration, just like she saw mine.

Truth be told, every time that happens, a part of me hopes that someone will just smack the person disturbing everyone’s peace right on their face. This thought is shut by the reminder that that is an act of hate, and not justice. It isn’t maintaining the peace and sanity of the people!

I am in no way insinuating that black people have been the only people to engage in this behaviour. This behaviour is like a disease that has infected all people of all races, genders and creeds, but I have witnessed it at a higher capacity among my fellow black people.

I am also not suggesting that hatred and prejudice are good. I am also not saying that violence against others will solve anything. Then again, maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. All I am saying is something needs to be done.

 By whom, I haven’t got the slightest idea.

When? I’d say yesterday!

Why? Honestly, because I am slowly disliking people who look like me, and that is a scary feeling, but such is life!

Let us be honest here, regardless of where we are from, we have all had these moments. Moments where we look at people, like us, or different from us, and thought to ourselves, “My God! These actions and this behaviour is why no one likes you!” Moments where we have had the same feeling of disgust as I did.

That’s okay. That’s allowed. It is part of being human. Part of living the human experience. Knowing and accepting that this anger exists and acknowledging that the response to it, violence, isn’t a viable solution makes us in a way good people. It is our responsibility to be good, to others, and to ourselves. It is our duty to be respectful of each other’s beliefs, but most importantly, turn the volume on your damned phone down!