Nelson Mandela Taught Me About Revolution. Life Taught Me That Everyday Is One.

“But then a second cruiser pulled up behind the first, and then one came and parked directly beside us on our left… and then one on our right… and finally, one behind us to box us in…”

erin ashley

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Before I even start this, I need to acknowledge the privilege I carry — that, of course, being the advantage of being a societal chameleon. Depending on the time of the year and the brownness of my skin, the kinkiness of my curls and even the makeup I choose to wear, I’m problematic to your typical racists — I don’t fit into any single box they want to categorize me as. When it comes to race, and ethnicity, for that matter, I haven’t been subjected to nearly 1/4 of the discrimination, hate or racism my fellow peers, friends and significant others have, but the melanin my body produced also hasn’t made me exempt.

Growing up in the white suburbs, and then attending high school in a very rich town, the n-word was swung around like a taboo clothing item you wanted to hide from your parents. I first heard it when I was around 9, not knowing what it was — but I know I was definitely called it during recess as a white boy ran down the hill. I remember this. Maybe that was my first experience realizing I wasn’t like everyone. I mean, I sort’ve knew I wasn’t because all I heard my parents preach about was how proud we were to be South African, and the excitement that echoed through the TV as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu called the country the Rainbow Nation. I guess it didn’t help that my childhood best friend, who was white but who’s parents also happened to be South African, never mentioned anything else either.

“It is never my custom to use words lightly. If 27 years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.” — Nelson Mandela

But there were a few incidents in my childhood where I encountered this kind of shit, though. Like the time my parents, who still had thicker accents then, tried to buy some costume for a school play from a small costume store. The place smelled of cigarettes and mildew. The owner of the store thought decided we didn’t look like we could afford whatever the fuck we were in there for, yelled at me for, I guess, existing in her presence, which in-turn lead to my parents yelling at her. I don’t remember what was said, but remember my mom looking defeated, half from protecting her child, half from an unnecessary argument. Little moments like this grooved their way through my childhood — and while I’m sure my dad didn’t think I saw his shaking hands when speaking to people in positions of power or when my mom quickly adjusted her accent and stance to a more ‘acceptable’ image, I did.

When I started high school…scratch that, when I attended the rich white student association, it was the era of the ‘wigger’ — you know, Eminem’s time. The time where white suburban kids started realizing that Black culture was cool, and wanted desperately to be accepted by the few Black kids in my school. I got the awkward pleasure of sitting through Black History Month as the only person of colour (perhaps with the exception of an Asian person or a South East Asian person, but never both), which of course included the classes where my white peers were reading ‘nigger’ out loud. Cool, thanks. While the n-word may not have always been said out loud, it started to be kicked around like hot garbage under the breath of many. It also went hand in hand with people always asking why I didn’t ‘speak ghetto’ or was told my melanin-filled body was obese (Apparently “Oprah” said if your thighs touched, you were obese. My 14-year old body was told that sitting in my size 6 bathing suit while everyone complained about being fat at size 2— but that’s another story in itself) or my favourite, comparing my hair to the fur of someone’s dog.

It was those experiences that made me opt-out of even considering attending a post-secondary school outside of Toronto. I knew I couldn’t survive another 4 years of the ignorance, the covert racism or the basement parties that played Eminem. (Seriously though, who’s trying to listen to “Stan” like that?) So, I opted for the most diverse school I could think of — York University; home of the commuter population, teacher strikes and lot of black and brown bodies — bodies that looked like mine, both in shape, but also colour.

But when everyone came home from their far-away schools, they’d speak about their new black friends… friends they claim let them say the n-word in regular conversations. (insert Mr. Krab meme here) And they’d also laugh about how going to “downtown ToronTo” and yelled out “nigger” outside of a subway station for shits and giggles. And after that night, I stopped talking to everyone from high school, with not one fuck given and not a single regret since.

While in university, I got a job in the financial district; a place where everyone that worked in that building required a criminal background check. I had just started working there and was about to turn 20, so I decided to head to a club with my (darker brown) cousin and two of our (dark skinned) male co-workers. We were walking back to the car with our burritos when the night was finished, and were just talking and eating in the car when a police cruiser pulled up in front of us. I assumed he was just stopping on the side street, as there was a barrier between the parking lot and the street, after all. But then a second cruiser pulled up behind the first, and then another one came and parked directly beside us on our left… and then one on our right… and finally, one behind us to box us in. Remember — everyone in the car, by law, had already had a criminal check, so I knew this was something more than that. The driver rolled down the window and was asked:

“Where are you coming from?”
“From down at Richmond Street, we were at a club,” he said.

“Well, there was a shooting up the street.”
“We just came from down the street, we just went to get burritos…,” he responded again, everyone with burritos in hand.

“Well, we’re going to need everyone’s information. We don’t know where you came from.”

A police officer then went to the passenger’s side of the car, where my other co-worker, a closer friend, was sitting. He asked for his phone number. He asked his job, his address, his history. He even asked for his height, even though it clearly says on a license he complied to provide, although legally, he didn’t have to. He asked about his family, his last name, his relationship to everyone in the car.

The officers, now two of them, shined their lights into the back of the car where my cousin and I were sitting. They asked my age and how I knew these two men, as if I was some lost light-skin working girl captured by two convicts — yet it wasn’t asked in a concerned way, but rather, one that tried to pin-point my role in this alleged shooting. I could see their wheels turning. Then they asked for my ID. In the back of my head, all I was thinking of is what Jay Z said:

I ain’t stepping out of shit all my papers legit
“Do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?”
Well my glove compartment is locked so is the trunk and the back
And I know my rights so you gon’ need a warrant for that

“What do you need my ID for?,” I asked emotionally annoyed, but still polite enough to not start shit.
“Erin, just give him your ID,” my cousin pleaded.

“Because I’d really commit a crime on my birthday, in heels,” I muffled extremely softly under my breath as he turned away.

We walked away unscathed and to the cops’ disappointment, although I’m sure this would’ve been a different story in 2016 — because it has been a different story which we’ve heard of way too often in the past 5 years.

While every experience I had in my life prior to that night I could brush off, it was this experience that changed everything for me. And it’s this experience that cemented the fact that while beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so does judgement, rage and racism — even if you’re educated, employed, well-dressed or complying with officers. Even if the store owners dispute all allegations made about these victims and debunk the ridiculous news headlines that filter through channels like CNN. And even if your child is in the back of your vehicle telling her mother, ‘It’s okay Mommy, you got me.’

We live in a continent that praises someone like Nelson Mandela, but forgets why he was arrested multiple times in the first place. We live in a continent that tries to white-wash our Black heroes and take away their politics. We live in a continent where we’re subjected to videos of innocent dead black bodies floating across our social media times like a Vine clip, and numbers 558th and 559th reported before their God-given names. The names their families called them. We live in a time where now, more than ever before in our generation, the darker your glowing skin is, the more likely you are to be a victim. I mean fuck, we live in a world where people still find a way to dispute the fact that BLACK LIVES MATTER. But that’s not the world I’m going to raise children in. That’s not the world I’m going to give my energy and heart to. I’ve stood in the freezing rain. I’ve stood in snow until I couldn’t feel my feet. I’ve stood in the blaring heat. I’ve chanted. I’ve marched. I’ve cried. I’ve yelled. I’ve prayed. I’m exhausted — and I’m not even the primary ‘target’ in this war on Black bodies.

I don’t have the solutions that’ll be accepted by society to stop these racists from breaking our generation down emotionally, physically or mentally, or solutions that’ll stop them from creating unsafe environments for our own future babies. I don’t have the solutions that’ll be accepted by society to let our parents die peacefully, not worried about their family and who’ll protect them from the gross discrimination we face. But I do know that every act of defiance (and even compliance, at times) is an act of revolution. And on the day now known as Freedom Day in South Africa, President Nelson Mandela said:

“Years of imprisonment could not stamp out our determination to be free. Years of intimidation and violence could not stop us. And we will not be stopped now.”

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