Forgiving Does Not Mean Forgetting

There are 10 countries I know for a fact I am not going to visit in my lifetime, these countries have one thing in common they all don’t like black people, why I myself don’t know, but I know lots of black people have died in these countries. I don’t understand how the world could express hate about a simple thing such as a skin color, but apparently it can. I am not ashamed of my skin color or the way I represent it, but I also don’t love it; I would prefer to blend in with the crowd then stand out in this circumstance. People will out of nowhere stare at me and whisper to their friend’s I don’t understand what there is to be whispering about, but they do. Black people in a many ways are misrepresented we are not violent or aggressive. People look at some back people and think the whole race acts the same, but that’s not true just because one of us is loud, violent and aggressive does not mean the whole race is the same.

I have always hoped that maybe people could get past my complexion and see me for the human that I am, but I lost that sense of hope on Sunday, October 19^th I went to work as usual and like always as I got to work my manager asked me to take the till I servered customers for a while, made coffees and handed people their food like I always have. One of the jobs of the till person is to make sure the lobby is clean and so I had to go check on the lobby every half an hour; when I first started working at McDonalds I hated checking the lobby because it meant I had to interact with the customers and some customers can be rude, but if they were ever rude it was never personal; however, today it was. Today as a man in his forties walked in and I served him. He was different from any of the rude customers I have come into contact with. He was nice to me around the mangers said thank you and when I handed him his coffee he walked away.  Again came the half hour and I had to go check on the lobby I grabbed my broom and stared sweeping the floor. As I swept the floor the old man said out of nowhere, ‘Excuse me may I ask you a question?’’ Before I could answer he said ‘’Why did you stay in the sun too long?’’ I right way caught on to what he was saying and started getting mad, but he then pressed on to say,‘’ Don’t get mad I bleached’’ and he laughed about his’’ joke’’.  At that moment I did not know what to do; I wanted to hit him in the head with the broom I was holding, but I didn’t.  I couldn’t move. I wanted to cry, but what good would that  do?  I stood there staring at him. The manager came and pushed me on my arm and I rose from my long stare. He asked what was wrong because I was shaking. I told him what had happened and he asked the customer to leave, but I was still angry; I was mad, but this time not at the man, but myself. I had manged to have someone insult me right there in my face without saying a world back in return.

I have never felt personally attacked in my life for something t I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have courage to stick up for myself; all I wanted to do was cry because if you think about it what had I done to deserve such an insult from someone I didn’t know? I hope one day my skin complexion won’t matter at all and that one day I can visit all those 10 countries without worrying about what might happen to me. I hope one day the only reason people whisper around me is about who I am as a human rather than about my complexion. I hope the next time someone says something about my complexion that I have the courage to stand up for myself.  

By Edwin Jada

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/america-is-not-for-black-people-1620169913