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I fear a black man


I hold my breath as he passes by, I’m not sure what he will do. He says hi and I pull my bag closer to myself, what if he takes it and runs or what if he kidnaps me and rape me? A black man walking past me seems more dangerous than a white man next to me. When I pull up near the traffic light, where there is a black man giving out flyers, I roll up my window and shack my head, hard enough that he does not need my voice to know, I won’t help him, he needs to move, without even looking at him, I give him a clear message. While a white beggar hears my voice, with my window in the same low position it was when I was driving. 

Violence and crime has been painted with the paint of a black man, it has been given a face, a face we all know and a face that is the face of our brothers and fathers.  The world has taught us one thing about criminals and that is, they are black and male. Maybe it’s just me, I look at my father as my hero, my brother as the coolest guy out there, and even my drunk uncle who would walk the streets without being able to stand upright, even falling at times, I laugh and go to him. These are the black men we see on the streets, at malls and even on the roadsides.
When we look at these men in fear and with pre-judgment, whose father are we looking at, whose brother are we looking at or even uncles?

The world is full of great African men, yet we choose to only look at the negative narrative of African men, whether you are (African) American or African, there is a stigma attached to black men. This narrative has become a narrative black men and women have adopted as well.
The reality is that crime has no colour, the US has more white men in prison than black men, however, if you go to Africa, more black people are in prison than other races, this is due to the fact that each of these countries racial ratios are dependent on the populations. In Europe, the majority of the crimes are by white men.  However, when we travel to Europe or the US, we are still more afraid of black men than the white man.


The narrative of crime needs to be changed and needs to be factual, blackness is not a crime, however, we ( black people) have made our own blackness a fear factor. We spend more time speaking of the negatives of our own people, rather than the good and the accomplishments of black people. 


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