I think that my upbringing, plus the fact that I grew up in Zimbabwe and also my getting to travel a lot, meeting different people and having friends from all races and nationalities, makes me one of the people who are the farthest from racism as possible.
I’m not just one of those people who go on about how they’re not racist but then say that it’s impossible for them to marry someone from this race or that, or who feel somehow superior to people from a certain nationality or race, and that list of contradictions goes on…
No, I’m someone who is genuinely un-racist. I wouldn’t have even hesitated to marry a woman from any other race or nationality if I truly fell in love with her. I have friends from all over the world who are different from me in race, nationality, religion and more; yet when I’m with them I don’t feel one bit of difference.
Anyway, what reminded me of all this is this experience I had when I was a kid in Zimbabwe, in which I was a victim of racism and not the opposite.
I must’ve been around 8 years old or so, and we lived in this compound which mainly consisted of families of foreigners, who were there for work or who newly settled in the country.
I had a number of friends from England, Greece and Portugal within the compound, and I had a bunch of Zimbabwean friends who lived in nearby buildings.
One of my black Zimbabwean friends belonged to a poor family that lived in a little house made of tin, not too far from the compound we lived in.
I really liked him and enjoyed playing with him a lot. I’d go around with other Zimbabwean friends sometimes and other times on my own, and we’d go out and play all kinds of games; Almost anything is enjoyable when you’re a kid.
Our friendship grew, and all was great until his father knew about it and he started telling his son not to play with me because I was white.
I thought that was unfair, and I didn’t understand why such a thing could matter at all, so I didn’t give up and I kept sneaking over to my friend’s place to take him out to play.
His father caught me while sneaking in a number of times and started running after me with a stick, trying to scare me away from coming back to play with his son, but I’d just outrun him, jump over fences, go through some of my other friend’s houses to lose him, and then just run back to take his son out to play before he got back.
It was a challenge for me. I wouldn’t tolerate someone judging me by my colour. How come he let his son play with other black kids, but stopped him when it came to me?!
And so I went on coming back time and time again.
In the end he just gave up; I think he finally realized I was unstoppable and that I would go on playing with his son whether he liked it or not.
That memory still passes through my mind every now and then, and makes me wish that we were all more like children, and that we’d stop judging each other for all the stupid reasons we put between us. Why can’t we all just accept each other for what we are and embrace our differences and accept them as enriching elements that make each one of us unique.
It’s very bad to involve children into foolishness and rubbishes and teach them racism and other non-sense thoughts.
The president of Zimbabwe played the “hunt whites” card, and he succeeded. Racism is not just an individual thought, but unfortunately a tendancy.
Great story! I wish all of the racists out there would do the same thing that boy’s father did: just give up.
Unstoppable MMM!
I enjoyed reading it 🙂
I guess I’ve had my share of prejudice growing up. When I used to live in California, there was this kid, his name was Clark Wimer. He was the biggest of enemies. Actually the only enemy I’ve ever had, and I still remember him vividly till today, though this is a very hard thing to achieve, given that most of my brain cells are fried.
Anyways, he used to always make fun of me cause I’m Arab, sometimes cause I was a Muslim, though I didn’t fast a lot when I was a kid, and I certainly didn’t pray or anything. His friends (2 guys, one was Terrell and one was Lawrence, both were black), also made me fun of me, and they even thought I was Mexican sometimes cause of my skin color.
There also was this lousy teacher, who i used to always believe that he molested this Clark boy, I forgot his name. Anyways, he always gave me detention for no specific reason. These were my childhood nightmares.
I remember a time when I stopped talking to a dear friend, whose name was Jose, though he was Armenian, but you know Middle Eastern Americans. And I once was like asking him about Jesus and stuff, and I was like then telling him that God doesn’t exist and it’s only a myth, and stuff like that (I was pretty much twisted when it comes to God, still am), so his mother told my very religious mother and ever since that day I didn’t speak to Jose, and also my mother grounded me for like centuries and centuries.
Anyways. You’re not alone.
lol
really funny stories ..
Keskon ne ferait po pr un match de foot !
amzign story it was enjoyable to read
hi my name is lele or lea and i have had to deal with racism to. especially because i have been adopted by white people and i am black
I feel bad for all the african americans out there and all the other coloured people. Eventhough I am only 12 I can’t stop the racism and I hate to see the world be evolved around racism. It needs to stop. Your story was very touching and also quite inspiraring.
Thank you for butting your story word wide.
Aww that was so touching i have been critizized by my colour and im only 12! but im alright now. even though i do get the nasty comments once in a while 🙁 its quite sad but this is life .. great story!
I think it is a good thing that you are not racist because in school i studied a lot about racsim, discrimanation and sectarianism. I felt bad for people who have had to live with people who dont accept that everyone is different and with the lights off we all look the same.
Thank you x x x
Sweet story. Yes, we are all born innocent. Racism is learnt/taught but as adults we all have the choice and common sense to say it’s wrong!
thanks for the story realy nice my teachers gunna like it