"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." This is how "The Great Gatsby" starts. So, we are each the product of our environments. This notion is very hard to understand and grasp, until we are faced with the unusual, then suddenly as though through enlightenment, many things start to make sense. This also happens once we start to understand that we should not look at anyone as the worse of their kind or ourselves as the best of our kind.
Due to recent events in the US, specifically in Central Park, NY and Minneapolis, I wanted to chime in and share something personal that I hope can help each of us understand the world we live in.
Barely 6 months ago, I was driving home with my young daughter in the backseat when I noticed a driver behind me that seemed unsettled and was pressuring everyone to move so whoever it was could get to their destination. After pressuring me to drive faster (I was already driving above 60miles/hr on a 55mi/hr road) the passenger went to right lane and then sped up to try to pass me despite the lack of space between me and the driver ahead of me. And this lady (a woman in her mid-20s I believe), decided to force her way in front of me. I used my horn and guess what… She still tried to force her way in, hitting me in the process and I went swerved off the roads into the middle grass and then parked. There was damage to both cars, so of course she stopped also. I got out of my car and said to her, "Why would you force your way into a space that you know you cannot fit? I have a toddler in the car for Christ's sake." She responded by asking me why I hit her. I then proceeded to tell her that I will be calling the police and went back to the car and waited for them to come.
I will skip the details here but something struck me big time: Right after the officers gave me their information and the next steps. One of them said to me: "Next time, make sure you do not engage with another driver in this type of incidents, I understand you have reasons to be upset with a young child in the car, but she called us and said that you were screaming at her and harassing her, she felt threatened. Make sure you stay away and wait for the police." My response was, "She said I screamed at her? Well, I don’t want to hear that," and I just drove away. Despite my anger then, I acknowledge this police officer may have saved my life.
This matters because when I saw the news about the incident in New York where a Caucasian woman decided to call 911 on a Black man just because he asked her to leash her dog, I had flashback. The flashback was even more vivid when I saw on the video shared on social media, how hysterical this lady got, specifying, "An African-American man is threatening me and my dog". The thought crossed my mind: "It could have been me." What is worse is that within 24 hours of that, I see that an African-American man dies in Minneapolis after interaction with the police. I was reminded that interactions between police and African-Americans can easily end up with the latter person dead.
Today has been a very hard day for me ;just processing all of this information in my mind has been hard. I feel blessed to have been warned once, and to see other events unfold with tragic ending in the same matter gives me cause to pause and share my thoughts on this.
Coming back to my first statement from Scott Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby, I remember when I was leaving my home country for the US, that I had this perception of the African-American person. I believed a lot of misconceptions and untruths about them to the point that, due to my first interactions with them in Alabama (where they 90% of the time rejected me and asked me to go back to where I came from) all these misconceptions were reinforced. My personal experiences up to that time shaped my whole life's outlook and would guide me to have interesting takes on certain situations such as categorizing everyone who was African-American as "lazy". Thankfully with time, and since my mind is like a sponge that retains everything, different interactions where it was obvious that my race mattered, such as being called "Monkey" during my last year of college, have also helped me develop a sense of empathy. That empathy expresses itself better through my high level of acceptance for anyone as the paradigm of my thinking process has been reset. Every time I've interacted with people over the last 10 years, I always avoided making assumptions about them from what I see. I have learned that the reality is always completely different. A good example is one of my dear friends from the same state of Alabama; an African-American who is probably one of the smartest human beings that I have ever met. The first time we met, based on his looks, I had a lot of apprehension, so much so that he once called me out on it, I felt so ashamed, and remembered a beautiful quote from Jean de La Fontaine: "Accordingly as your power is great or small, the judgments of a court will whiten or blacken your reputation." from the "Animal sick of the plague." All of our opinions and believes are shaped by these advantages that we all live with or through, beautifully stated in the Great Gatsby. No matter what they are and how they occur they leave marks on them, that we use consciously or unconsciously as references'markers for what we do.
I say this to share my opinion on human relations from the lens of a black man living in the USA. The most valuable asset that we have as humans is the faculty to think, analyze and react. But what is there to do when confronted to situations where assumptions are the basis to pass judgement? Should we all assume the worse of anyone we deal with from a different race? My heart aches today after seeing how a man was taken away from his loved ones because regardless of what he might be guilty of, he did not deserve to die. This could have happened to me the day of this incident if the police came assuming the worse of me. As a believer I am reinforced in my faith through my daily prayers, I strongly believe God protected me that day but so many others did not get the benefit of the doubt.
Food for thought for anyone reading this: remember to always assume the best of anyone you meet or interact with. Let each of us in the little world we live in, take the little steps that we can to make this world a better place for us and for our children.
Here is another quote, from Eric Hoffer that we could all use: "Sometimes when we accuse others we are actually excusing ourselves. The more we need to justify ourselves, the greater will be our self-righteousness". Until next time, be safe.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
Oscar the talkative Platypus.
