First, I don't care that you are black, nor that your buddy seated next to you today on the Sky Train Canada Line is Caucasian. And I don't care that you are maybe, twenty years old. I also don't care that you are male (I will not call you a "man", though of course you are human. Just a very immature human). I decided to let it go that you didn't offer me your seat (I am sixty and I was tired, holding a bag of groceries). A kind Asian youth offered me his seat, anyway, and I gratefully accepted.
It was when you produced your precious little iPhone and decided to serenade us with your favourite Drake or some other god-awful rap, not considering that you were on public transit, that it was crowded, and maybe that not everyone shared your taste in music. You also didn't seem to care a rat's heiny that it is against transit rules of conduct.
I put up with it for a while, as did others. I looked your way, glared at you. You chose to ignore me. It was a short ride. I would let it go. But...
Why let you get away with it? Why let you think that it is okay to do something that is so obviously not okay, you young, arrogant little shit Why condone your selfish loutish behaviour and thus empower you by default to do it again and perhaps even worse? So, just as I was leaving, I spoke up.
I asked you if you lost your earphones. A few others spoke up with me in agreement. You already knew you were outnumbered. Then you said something really stupid: "I'm just doin' my thing man". I told you that you weren't the only person there. You muttered something defiant. I said that you are not the centre of the universe. You said you don't care and I replied with something I'm not proud of but I still hope it kicks your ass good and hard until you learn to act like an adult. I said as I left that you ought to care and that it is people like you that give "Black Lives Matter" a bad name.
Black Lives Matter has my sympathy and support. Still, I have suffered more than my share of grief from young black men. In Amsterdam I was robbed at knife point by...a young black man. Three years later I was threatened on the street and assaulted by...two large black men. A few years ago I was viciously sworn at while trying to dodge the secondhand cigarette smoke of, you guessed right, a black man.
Now I know that you pathetic doofuses do not accurately represent your demographic. Whatever your reasons for being so full of hate and aggression towards others I would have to say that you guys also lack something that a lot of us lovely progressive liberals are afraid to name: a moral compass. Yes, black lives matter. Yes many black people suffer from systemic racism. But you know something else, dude? The rest of us don't have it easy either and we did not ask you to vent your anger on us.
In conclusion, while I am glad to say that I know and have known an awful lot of wonderful black people, I am equally sad to say that but for one or two, none of these wonderful black people are men.
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