Rage

I’m full of rage. I have no idea what’s going on but I know that the rage within me is overflowing. I’m tired of dealing with all the bullshit. I’m tired of dealing with whiteness everyday. I’m tired of having to bite bullets all the time. I’m tired of having to protect people’s feelings because they can’t handle the truth. And it’s making me angry.

I’ve known for a long time that I’ve had anger issues. I knew from when I was 10 years old and got into a fight and I kept kneeing their face and didn’t wanna stop. The fact that it took so many people to hold me back made me realize that I never wanna get into another fight again because for me it’s not just “fighting”; it’s survival. 

I’m tryna survive as best as I can. I was raised in a way which didn’t allow me to express my feelings and I suffered because of it. I didn’t know how to express my feelings at then time whether it was love, joy, sadness, or peace. I felt like I never really had a full grasp on them. But my parents were raising me how they were taught. They were raised through survival and not expressing feelings was a part of survival. Showing feelings meant being weak and you couldn’t be weak while you were trying to survive.

Now here’s the thing; my blackness has not afforded me the opportunity to survive that easily. I’ve been given some great opportunities in my life, but they have all come at a certain expense, which is my peace. As a black man, tryna find peace is a never ending task. It’s hard to get a grasp of peace because I’m always having to look over my shoulder. I get so many looks on the daily from white people who seem to be disgusted by my blackness. Although it’s only a look and they know they won’t try me, it still hurts to know that the colour of my skin is still frowned upon no matter what I’m doing. Shopping, cycling, walking, shit even breathing are frowned upon because I’m black. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Now back to this rage. It may not seem like it on the outside, but on the inside I’m constantly like a kettle that’s boiling over. It sucks that I can’t release it in the way that I want to because once I do, I prove stereotypes right. I’ll be just another angry black man who lost his cool at some white people who started the confrontation, but have been given the benefit of the doubt because their whiteness has afforded them that luxury. That’s what pains me. The historical fact that white people have prompted so much suffering for black people and can still choose to play the victim. They can never fully suffer the consequences of their insensitivity because the world was built around their image.

I wish it was that simple for me. I wish that I could go out in the world and have no worries. I wish that over the centuries, media representation perpetuated my skin color as the alpha and not the low class beta. I wish that my hair, skin color, or speech wasn’t discriminated against just because you don’t look like me.  I wish that those stupid ass racist comments disguised as “jokes” were kept to yourselves. And I wish you’d say you stop understanding. While I appreciate the sentiment, you can never FULLY understand because you don’t look like me. You don’t look like us. 

So when you see “me” make sure that you think twice about the things that you might do or say in my company because I might be ready to snap at any point. Remember, my blackness has taught me how to survive in a world that doesn’t really want me to do so. It wants me to pack it in and curl into a ball, but unfortunately I can’t do that. I need to survive. And I’ll make sure to carve out my own space so that I can do so as comfortably as possible, no matter what’s thrown my way.