“But the man was
black and had a black dog and wore black clothing and walked on the dark country
lane-“ The woman on the radio with the thickly East-Anglia accent almost
screeched out of the back seat speakers, the topic for discussion was the new charge
that accompanies “hogging the middle lane” on motorways, a subject most
motorists feel passionately about. Anything that causes road rage should be reprimanded,
in their opinions. I dunno maybe get some anger management therapy instead…
Maybe? Call me a Freud groupie but this kind of anger usually stems from
something else. As said to me once by a qualified therapist I used to know,
“usually you are not angry at the external situation, it’s just the external
situation that has made you angry about something internal.”
Road rage has
always been something I could never get my head around, in all fairness, I do
not drive. My driving experience spans as far as my dad plopping me in the driving
seat of his Astra and then instructing me to stall the car at least 11 times, a
probably psychologically scarring experience that explains my aversion to
joining the motorist gang and my recently hilarious mistaking of the handbrake
for the clutch.
Anyway… This woman’s
voice rang with the typical Eastern England screech, typically associated with
Essix[1].
She barked words about “dark” and “black” as she described her motorist
tribulations, a man wandering about a dark country road in the middle of the
night with no visibility gear. One thing that naturally got picked up on was
her highlighting of the pedestrian’s ethnicity, she and Nick Conrad (the DJ at
the time) discussed his clothing, “he should have worn high visibility gear”
and “sometimes even wearing white is encouraged”[2].
At one point Nick mentions awkwardly that her comments on the man’s racial
origins may be picked up on by listeners, and boy, were they.
Because what for
me, was really poignant about this woman’s spiel was plainly the tone of voice
she used to describe this pedestrian’s skin tone. She spat out the words, as if
trying so forcibly to avoid the touchy subject by overcompensating in her
spoken expulsion of “black man.” Her absurdist portrayal made me imagine a
1920’s gollywog man with shoeshine for face paint wandering up and down the
road. And to me this was not a comical thought. It made me sad.
Because this man,
obviously, can’t help his skin tone. Just like how I can’t help mine when I turn
lobster red when in the playhouse garden in June[3]. It’s
genetic, uncontrollable, and part of a person’s visual identity. Yes, his
clothing can be helped, I give the anonymous caller that, he could have donned
a high visibility jacket, even given the dog a “blind dog” style bright yellow
lead. But the colour of this man’s skin is unavoidable, unnecessarily picked up
on, and used against this man like it is at his fault. And it. Is. Not.
So in the back of
the cab I shook my head and muttered; “that’s ridiculous.” Ever had that thing
where you literally can’t not verbalise your thoughts? That’s what happened[4].
“She is actually being borderline racist.” Borderline
racist. Different to full on racist.
“I think people are
too quick to play the racism card though. He was a black man walking a dark
street at night.” The cabbie drawled. I sighed. Were we really going there and reprimanding this man
for his skin colour? An act of hatred that has been echoed in history for
hundreds of years? “I’ve driven lots of black people in my time. And you’d be
well- surprised. Often black people are racist about white people.” And that
makes it acceptable?! “I recently drove a member of the EDL and he wasn’t
actually racist, not at all. He just thinks Britain should be kept British” I
felt my mouth beginning to press into a thin line. “That Christianity should be
kept in schools, he wants his children to be bought up and not be Muslim.” Be
muslim!!? Like it’s some sort of metamorphic type transformation!!? I was
quiet. My brain felt all scrambled and angry. I stared blankly at the fish and
chip shop we rode past that was ran by a Vietnamese couple and I wondered- what
even was British anymore?
Sure this man had
his opinions on the immigration laws in Great Britain, but that to me certainly
does not mean an eye for an eye. I remember finding out recently that the man
who murdered the soldier in Woolwich said afterward “an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth.” A cruel twist on one of my favourite, and most relevant-to-life
quotes of all time.[5]
Afterwards the
driver then made phatic chit-chat on “what the new bakery down the road” was
like, and I felt a weird cloud lift out over our heads. Maybe cab conversation
should be kept like this, small and chatty.
But this is
something I have always struggled with, I am not the person at the dinner party
who raises her hands and laughs “woah woah- this conversation got deep.” I can’t extrapolate interestingly
and eloquently on the weather, today it was sunny. That was it. So maybe this
woman was right to speak up about “the black man”, she didn’t shy away and that
was almost admirable. However I couldn’t fathom what she was trying to say, no
matter how I looked at it. I had my opinions and they had theirs, and we all
had to try to inhabit this country together, like 4 disagreeing housemates
bickering about the washing up.
[1] Essex, county in England.
[2] I apologise to BBC Radio Norfolk and
the people involved in these quotes if inaccurate, I feel as though I get the
main point of them, but they are paraphrased as cannot remember what was said
word for word.
[3] My shoulder’s are radiating heat right
now. Literally.
[4] This blog is called “I Have
Opinions” for a reason y’know.
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