Kedzie

It doesn’t matter where you walk away to because there is always someone that believes their hate is justified because no one stands up to them, they expect people to walk away. I don't walk away.

Kedzie

I sat and I pondered as I saw the rain gather on the window. I sat and tried to read but couldn’t because it was not the time to consume words but to produce them.

                It had been a rough week with high highs and low lows. I had just been promoted to supervisor at the zoo and on that same day as I walked home a man decided to follow me for a couple of blocks and call me a spic “I don’t want to be dealing with spics, go back to where you came from” he said with a tone of not so much anger but disappointment as if trying to make me understand that I should’ve known that the sins of my skin were not welcomed here, that I had been wrong all this time. I stood and forced myself to produce thunder with my voice “What did you just call me?” tempting fate for a fight, I yelled. It is the curse of the short man that a short temper will follow; he is forever striving to be heard, to be seen. I fill the shortage of height with the thunder of my voice. I longed for him to walk back to me, to say it one more time; I longed for him to try to attack me only so I could tear his body apart and knock his face on this ground.  However, I was quickly released from my rage by an old, white lady “Oh don’t worry, he’s probably just high, just walk away.” And walk away I did.

                My soul had grown weary from its experiences, its rage doesn’t quite echo and linger as much as it used to. It seems the anger from the long years has made it tired. It pities itself now; it wants peace when all it used to want was to roar.

                A couple of nights later I found myself at the bottom of a bottle, bumping my way into the bathroom as one does in a crowded bar when a white man seemed to have a problem with me. It’s a crowded bar, everyone’s bumping into everyone but somehow I’ve insulted him. The man wants trouble and if there is something I’ve never been able to learn in my 24 years of existence is how to walk away from a fight. He and his friend stand in front of me, towering a foot above me, they knock my drink down and start pushing me.

                I am trying with everything I have to suppress my need to push this guy’s teeth in because I am brown and they are white and when this turns into something more I know it is I who will be in the back of the police car. As they push me, I am looking around, trying to establish eye contact with a witness. When I finally find someone who is watching the whole thing, I look to him as if to tell him to keep watching because I will need him later, but he signals me to get out there, he signals me to walk away. He looks at me as I am being pushed and as my drink spills all over my feet and I am just told to walk away once again.

But I can’t. What is a man without the will to stand up for himself? How I longed for his pushing to become a fist so I could tear them apart, because I can’t throw the first punch, I can’t ever throw the first punch. One more push and my back hits the bar causing the bouncer to finally approach me and try to kick me out. I asked him to talk to the guy behind as I am getting kicked out and he finally did and went after the two other men.

I hated myself. I hated that I am the one that has to walk away, that my actions and my words must be approved and supported by another man in order to gain their full weight. I hated that the weight of my words were not enough in this country. I hated it was always there in the back of my head, they were white, I was not. That tabula rasa will never be for my raza. There will never be a blank slate. That every day you bump into someone, that someone stares at you it is more than what it is, there is always the possibility that it might be about your skin.

Above it all, I hated that I had let my guard down, that Chicago was starting to feel like home, that I was starting to feel like I belonged. It was rather easy, getting out at kedzie and realizing everyone looks like you. Getting an elote at fruityland on my way home, hearing the parties at el Michoacanito, Café San Juan, El Gallo Bravo. Walking into Cermak and having absolutely no need to speak in English. “Aqui tiene Joven.” It felt safe there with the music in my native tongue and the kids playing outside of taquerias. I didn’t need to prove anything in those streets. It was that comfort which had made the experiences from the past week sting more than they should have. That neighborhood could have been a sanctuary but the reality was that there was still hate everywhere.

Was that hatred their fault? Was ignorance their fault? One of my first weeks in Boston, as I opened the door to my dorm room a young white kid yelled across the hallway “Hey Moi, how many people did your cartel kill tonight?” Was it his fault that he did not know I grew up in a city ruled by the cartel? Was it his fault that he was oblivious to the fact that numerous people die every day there to the hand of the cartel, to the hand of Narcos. Is it his fault that to him that is simply a TV show and not a word that inspired fear? That driving at night I would skip all the red lights and fly down the boulevard in order to avoid trouble, that going out after curfew meant you could die. That I had stood at 17, shoulder to shoulder, with my best friends staring at a torn down building in the middle of nowhere with guns at our back thinking we were about to die. That freshman year of college when I wouldn't hear from my father I would search the news to make sure I didn't find his name there. Perhaps not, to him, Narcos was just a Netflix show.

What about the guy who joked in front of me that someone’s unshaven mustache made him look like a dirty Mexican? What about the guy at work who yelled at me instructions in broken Spanish and when I asked him why he didn’t just speak in English he said, very slowly, “Because I want you to understand.”  Is it my fault that I don’t walk around with my degree in Philosophy and Psychology so he understands that I probably speak his tongue better than he does? What about the boss who told me “if it ain’t white it ain’t right” and expected me to laugh while the other boss did absolutely nothing. Am I still supposed to just walk away?

My best friend tells me I should stop thinking about it; that I attract such experiences but I can’t. It is always in the back of my head because In this country it doesn’t matter where you walk away to because there is always someone that believes their hate is justified because no one stands up to them, because they expect people to walk away instead of standing up for themselves. I'm done walking away. Please, stop telling me to walk away and stand behind me.

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Wow. This kicks my butt. Outstandingly written and powerful, it leaves me both angry and heartbroken. Why must our species be like this? Racism may be mankind's greatest flaw, I think. With that orange ogre's encouragement, it has stood up taller than ever. Even though I'm about 99% European, my dark complexion has allowed me very small tastes of what you've experienced.

[Puentes]

Thank you so much for your thoughts Samuel!