The Last Straw

A few days ago I posted about the final experience I had with racism in America.

It was personal and impacting and elicited many strong reactions.

But what some don’t know is that the incident I shared was just one of many going back to my childhood.

This occurrence truly was the “ last straw” as I wrote, but it wasn’t the first, nor would I expect the last.

Now before I move on, let me say that I speak about issues of racism, especially my own, in order to add a voice in support of those men and women who are being unjustly targeted and killed by ICE in the United States.

Just as I have been racially profiled and harassed throughout my life by ignorant people, these ICE goons that carry out orders for their ugly orange leader are just another extension of the same.

They are thugs.

They are bullies with a racist agenda, and I know bullies.

Tying into all this, I can tell you that one of my earliest memories of being bullied was from when I was still in elementary school. No, it wasn’t racism yet, but that came soon enough.

By the time I got to high school the bullying grew and changed. It became more hateful, more direct, more overtly racist.

I remember being called “camel jockey” and “sand n$&@!r” and even having those words spray painted above my locker for all to see.

I remember having lit matches thrown into my locker igniting my school books.

I remember kids throwing milk cartons full of paint at me when my back was turned.

It was horrible and made my life miserable.

I remember all of this hatred, anger and racism.

Some will be in disbelief and try to diminish my experiences by saying “that’s just kids being kids” or try to shame me by saying, “what did you do to receive that?”

But the reality is that I did nothing to elicit that terrorizing behavior and hateful rhetoric.

Those that knew me, knew I was a fairly quiet kid, studious and artistic, maybe a little anti/establishment with regard to my dress, but a good kid.

You see even growing up along the outskirts of East Los Angeles, where great diversity existed, a kid like me, half Pakistani and half Mexican/American, became a ripe target for those with ignorant ideas. My name alone might raise eyebrows in some that were impressionable and guided by twisted thoughts. To live as Jameel Ahmed Haiat in my community with others that had Spanish, Japanese or Chinese surnames was akin to me holding a glowing neon sign up to those that wanted to lash out at someone different.

I never considered that those same feelings I had as I encountered hatred by certain high school peers in my teens, would carry on through to chance meetings with atrocious adults later.

But they did.

I have lived with this my entire life, no matter where I travelled or lived within the United States.

The ignorance and inhumanity perpetuated by these people hasn’t faded.

It hasn’t disappeared.

And now, under this current administration with people like Stephen Miller pushing xenophobic agendas, racism and prejudice have been super charged.

As is the case for all humans, I didn’t choose the color of my skin, that was Mother Nature doing what she does best.

Seriously though, why should anybody give a damn anyways about my, or anybody else’s, skin tone?

Why should anybody care?

Well, you’ll have to ask them.

So then where am I going with all this?

Well, back to what I first said about my final experience with racism in America being “the last straw”.

I hope now you can truly understand that “the last straw” was but one piece of a massive bale of distressful and horrible experiences that I encountered throughout my life that made me feel disrespected, disparaged and inhuman.

So I ask you, would you want to live your life in a place knowing that people can freely treat you  with such disrespect in such a malicious manner with zero accountability?

I know I sure as hell don’t, nor will, ever again…