The Unheard words of new writers...

situation eight: the gentlemen, the ladies

I’m bored
of the way

men are…
Walking around the dance floor, in tight tops, trying to flex their biceps (the ones they used dumbbells on just before they came out), keeping that 'don’t-f**k-with-me' expression.

The slightest nudge into someone’s back as you pass them, the meekest graze of another man’s shoes or a look into another man’s eyes, and violence is the likeliest consequence. There is a problem with some black men. They can’t let any man be seen to take advantage of them – or maybe I should rephrase that…they can’t let any black man be seen to take advantage of them. The reason: they don’t want to seem weak, and so if they perceive they are being challenged, they must reply aggressively.

I didn’t win Mastermind last year – but I have that small piece of intelligence necessary to realise that smiling is better than fighting, and that fighting is worse than smiling. I also know that I don’t care what people think about me on road. I will never have to see them again, so I don’t care whether they think I am weak. What can it do to me?

I’m bored of the way women are…
Looking up and down at other women menacingly.
'She thinks she looks so good in that hat',
'who does she think she is wearing a dress that low',
'those shoes don’t go with those trousers'.

The whispers, the stares, the condemnation, the sneak peeks, the scorn, the hatred. I can see insecurity seep from their every pore. They hate the way they look. They hate who they are. Watching Oprah, reading self-empowerment novels, seeing 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back', flicking through Ebony, and yet still, finding solace in the denunciation of other women – and more specifically, young black women.

Too many young black people have too little confidence in themselves. It’s heartbreaking. Too many black people feel so bad inside. It’s painful. The need to prove themselves gives them the irrational notion that harming others, will give them the self-assurance necessary to feel good about themselves.
As an example, how insecure would I have to be to let a man who doesn’t know me, who isn’t in my life, who I don’t respect, make me risk prison or personal harm because he is staring at me?