We're all humans

Dear reader,

on july, 1^st this year Barbara Frost wrote in the Guardian an article entitled Two girls died looking for a toilet. This should make us angry, not embarrassed, in which she told about the sad destiny of two cousins, 14 and 16 years of age in india. They two of them were raped and later killed looking for a toilet. Everybody should safely have access to water and a toilet.

It was only a couple of days later when it took me almost two hours to get to my dad. Usually it takes me about 30 to 40 minutes, unless it's sunday with longer times between to trams arriving. It was a week day that day. At first the time when the tram would be arriving was wrong. The next should be arriving in 1 minute. I waited 20 minutes in the end. There was no sign or announcement, as there usually would be. If I had know this, I'd have walked to the next station. Would have taken me 10 minutes and I'd have to change trams there anyway. I waited for the connecting tram for another 10 minutes then. Four stops before my final stop, the tram came to a hold. I can hardly believe that I'm hesitating now and that I'm desperate for words here, to write this. I hope and think that readers of my blog know how I mean this though. A group of students had been on the tram, too, and one girl had made fun of a black man, who ended up pushing her. The tram got stopped and the police was called. I was annoyed from all the delay my travel had cost me already and got out to walk the final bit to the train station down the shopping street. The last thing I noticed was that the black man apparently only spoke english. Which seemed to made it bit more difficult to communicate with him.

Last year I was in france with my dad and sister for what would have been my mom's birthday. As I got out of the train in paris, a police man stopped me at the platform. I didn't understand what he said to me in french. He asked me in english, if I spoke english. I didn't get to answer him. My dad had come back and my sister, too. As the police man saw the two, he just let me go. Only much later it occurred to my dad that maybe my shawl, which I have had around my shoulders, could have been the reason for the police to stop me. The shawl is grey with black squares connected with black lines the squares. You could think it had an arabic or muslim pattern. I got stopped for a shawl I had? I don't know if this actually was the reason, but it's indeed the only one I can think of. Thinking back I resent that I didn't ask them about it. I would have liked to know. What does it matter what someone is wearing for the character of a person or what that person thinks or what they might do?

Some time ago I heard on the telly a story about a french woman, if I remember it correctly. She studied islamic culture or arabic language or something like that and wanted to go to america once. They wouldn't let her in. I don't remember if the reason was mentioned or not. Probably they feared she might be a potential terrorist, what with her studies.

Many years ago I had contact with someone using a chat program and he was living in an area where they practised voodoo. I don't remember where he lived exactly. I had deactivated the profile pictures on my program. He had put up a picture of himself. He was black. He really liked me and he wanted me to be his girlfriend. Sadly his english was rather poor. So I had difficulty explaining to him that with me living in germany, it would be impossible for me to be his proper girlfriend. He got angry. He said it was his skin colour. I would despise him now, because he was black. I tried to make it clear to him that until just now I didn't know he was black, because I had the pictures deactivated. He didn't understand me, no matter what simple words I used to explain it to him. He insisted that his skin colour was the reason for my rejection. He was certain. He said, he'd go to a voodoo priest to curse me. So I'd be forever unhappy and something bad would happen to me. You'll see, he wrote.

And then there's this song Prejudices by Tim Minchin. As far as I know it came from an incident after he performed an older version of a song in which he sings about black people. Actually it's precisely that very point, that there is no “the black” and they “all” do this one thing, because they're black and all black people do it. After a concert some black people came up to him and told him to not sing those lines anymore, or else... Sad really, because it seems they didn't get the point of the song. The song is called “If you really love me” and the lines went, “We go together like a cracker and brie, like racism and ignorance, like niggers and R&B.” He makes a similar, to me equally important point, in the first part of his song Confessions. Women should not be afraid to walk the streets at night and fear for their life.

Penn Jillette of the magic duo Penn & Teller published short videos, vlogs, years ago. I don't remember the title and can't find a certain one online anymore. In it he talked about the fact that he doesn't judge people by their skin colour. In the end we're all equal. We're all humans. The skin colour says nothing about my behaviour. Our behaviour reflects our character. The character of a person has nothing to do with skin colour. I wish more people would think like that. The skin colour of a person should never be an issue.

Until next blog,

sarah