Maybe I'm Crazy. Possibly...
Tonight after work finished, everything was going as normal as it possibly could go. That is until I was waiting for the second bus to come that I decided to take a seat behing the bus stop area. It was on the outer cusp of a miniplaza under a tree, in the dark, but still only feet from the bus shelter.I never sit on this bench at night, as I prefer to stand while waiting. Tonight my mind made special note of myself wanting to sit down, as if saying to me 'I'm not feeling too good about this. Are you sure you want to do it?' and me ignoring it as usual.
So moments after I sit down to relax I look to the right, just beyond the shelter and I see three young (maybe 17-19 years old) black guys crossing the road. As I usually do with most people, I looked at them, and in this appraisal I figured they were no threat; not worth worrying about. So I turn away to my left, and begin watching for the bus again.
As I'm watching for the bus, the boys come into my eyeline again, this time they're walking around the shelter and approaching the bench I'm sitting on. It's a large enough bench that wraps around a tree-shrub garden-type contraption. I'm listening to my Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (post title - clever, eh?) album and I hear one of them say something to me. So I take out my earphone and ask 'what's up?' One of them just said 'hey, how's it goin?', and continued talking between the three of them about their 'not using a condom because it's annoying' conversation, that I found quite amusing.
The point here is me being apprehensive about a few kids encroaching in my personal bubble as it were. But most of all, I find myself asking is it because they were black that I was most worried? I can truthfully say no to that though. What bothered me the most was being taken out of my comfort level in listening to my music and having to deal with strangers being so upfront and talking to me; it's not my style and catches me off-guard most times.
It still brought up the question in my mind about the reaction black youth get just because they're dressing like a gangsta and talkin a lot of shit. Most of the time I believe they're just bullshitting anyway and trying to impress their friends.
I'm not a racist and I hate how people are, but what I truly hate most is, even though I'm not, it's almost engrained in me to react a certain way to certain people (I believe it's called stereotyping), even though my logical self is saying 'there's nothing to worry about' the entire time.
That marks two times in the span of about five minutes that I should have listened to my inner-self more and I would have saved myself the drama. In the end however nothing came of the situation and my bus finally arrived for my calm, sleepy ride home.
Peace.
posted by Sean @ 2:24 AM
Comments: 9
