Yesterday I found
myself taking the public transportation to work and as I sat and watch persons
take their seats on the bus, I couldn’t help but realize that I was making snap
judgment about the folks that came on the bus. However, the man that sat next
to me REALLY stood out. To say he made
me feel uncomfortable is putting it mildly. Though he was ‘animated’ by the same energy we call ‘God’, I couldn’t help feel like a ‘white’ man sitting next to him.
For the first
time I got how a white person feel when he/she
sees a black man that looks a certain
way. Have I felt like that before? Perhaps!
I guess I never paid attention to it because for the past few years I’ve been
in my own bubble, using my car to go where ever I needed to go. This made me
feel so out of touch with how things really are because I don’t think about
folks that use the public transportation services to get to where they need to
go. But I digress…as the guy with his ''I just came out prison'' look sat next me
fishing for something in his pocket, I PRAYED
that he wasn’t pulling out a knife or gun. Can you say residual effect of the last time I used public transportation?
A few years
back, I sat @ the back of bus, about 5/6 young men that looked to be my age
came on the bus. One sat next to me, asked me for money I gave the usual, ‘I don’t
have any’ reply and thought that was that. Next he showed me a knife that he
took out of his pocket and then told me NOT
to make him use it on me. @ That point I was upset because I just got paid I wasn’t
about to give up my money. So @ that point I decided to move from the back of
the bus as we near a stop because I felt something was going to happen. I made
my way to the front of the bus and all of the guys but one stayed as we got to
the stop. I saw one of the guys pick up a huge rock waiting for me to get off
as they ‘assumed’ it was my stop. If it
wasn’t for the bus driver and an older lady on that bus, I am sure I would have
been attacked and/or killed by those
men. I wrote this blog entry to say, we shouldn’t judge ‘white’ folks when they see a ‘black’
man that looks a certain way, because maybe, just maybe he could be what he appears
to be.
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