I'm just sick of it.
I'm a young, Black man and I'm just tired of feeling totally trapped in the world.
I was in a store today in a rural town when I passed a group of teenagers. I didn't even glance at them, but I could tell their energy shifted when they saw me. I picked up what I needed from the next aisle, but I could still hear some of their conversation. They were laughing and making comments about picking cotton and slavery. I had a feeling their comments were about me, but I walked back toward them to be sure. Sure enough, when they noticed me again, they got visibly embarrassed, said "oh, shit" and stopped talking entirely. I didn't say anything to them because they were clearly minors and I thought I sent enough of a message by walking back.
This is far from the first racist experience I've had and I'm sure it won't be the last. What's so frustrating about anti-Black racism is that it is constant. I can't change my name or how I dress to avoid be stigmatize for my skin. I feel like every time I leave the house I have to be constantly aware that my presence is making a statement before I even get a chance to open my mouth. People are judging me, seeing my as violent, criminal, ignorant, before I even get to display my character.
It's like being trapped.
Those teens from the store will likely grow up and some of them may hold on to their racist biases. Some of them might become police officers, doctors, lawyers, judges, business owners, etc. They one day might have the power to directly hurt Black people with their racism.
This is the reality of being Black in an anti-Black world. Every interaction is racialized and you have no idea what person holds prejudice towards you over something you have no control over.
What's even more frustrating is that people act like it doesn't happen. So many white people and even self-hating non-white people swear that racism is a thing of the past or it isn't as big of a deal as it used to be. Anytime you bring up a racist experience, they try to rationalize it and blame you for being treated the way you are.
The things is, even if racism isn't that common (for argument, let's say only 1 in 100 people are racist), play that out over a lifetime. How many people do you interact with in a day? A year? A lifetime? If you interact with 1,000 people over the course of a year, that's 10 racist experiences every year of your life. What does that do to someone over the course of a lifetime?
And these prejudices get people killed. I saw a video of a white woman who ran from a Black man walking up to his own home because she didn't believe he lived there. She was on HIS property and called the police on HIM because she couldn't believe a Black man lived in that house. Imagine if the police showed up and had that same assumption?
It's just an unimaginable weight sometimes and I find it hard to talk about because most people either act like it doesn't exist or justify it. On top of that, right-wing internet culture is making it even worse.
It makes me want to give up on society.