When I was a (really cute) little girl, I was walking with my father on a semi-busy street when I noticed that the path ahead of us was cut off by roadworks. There was no alternate path (this being the 90s) and pedestrians were instead advised to walk in the road (obviously not in the middle of the road, but on the road nonetheless). Coming towards me – by this point I was a bit ahead of my father having been keen to reach whatever toy shop or ice cream parlour we were headed to at that particular point in time (#childhood) – was what can only be described as a cloud of OAPs partaking in what was clearly a "power" walking club.
Look, I know what you're thinking, I was probably (condescendingly) thinking that too at the time, "Oh", you say to yourself, "that's so nice, so CUTE. They're socialising and getting exercise. HOW LOVELY". Well, you can stop that right now. Not on my watch. Because what happened next has traumatised me for all of my life so far and will probably stay with me for the rest of it.
In my (adorable) youthful hubris, I assumed this HUMAN SWARM would let me pass by first. Both because I was self-awarely cute and also because there were so many of them it would have been polite. So I took my tentative steps into the road, keeping as close as possible to wear the path would have been if it hadn't've been for the road works. When something genuinely awful happened. SOME DECREPID EVIL OCTAGENARIAN picked me up bodily and placed me in the path of oncoming traffic so that the way was clear for them all to pass. I was genuinely almost run over.
The hatred it real.
As a timid child my reaction was muted. All I did was run back after them, swear profusely, wish them dead and run off crying. BARELY REACTED AT ALL. And, adding insult to (nearly fatal) injury, my father (who was apparently supervising me so little he hadn't seen the whole thing go down) managed to witness the swearing and tried to get me to apologise. I MEAN. I was having none of that. So I got in trouble for being assaulted and those old fogies got away SCOTT FREE (you know, apart from the obvious). And ever since then, I have had a phobia. A phobia of old people.
Now, I must admit, that dramatic incident aside, this phobia has faded somewhat with time. And I'm not saying every elderly person is an axe-crazy sociopath (although, don't get it twisted, some are). But what I have noticed is something that I think is noticed by a lot of (non white) people my age. Old people be racist.
Extract from a genuine conversation I had with my first boyfriend:
Him: I can't wait for you to meet my family.
Me: Oh, that's nice, do you think they'll like me?
Him: yes, they'll love you. Except for my grandma. She'll hate you. Obviously.
OBVIOUSLY?! Why are people so chill about old people and their racism? It wasn't cool in their day either, HELLO?! Martin Luther King? Malcolm X? Rosa Parks? Nina Simone? All this was THEIR day, not ours. They lived it. And yet, they still cling on to those beautiful days of open racism and randomly hating Irish people. #whitepeoplesocrazy
Again, I am not saying this is all older (white) people. But it's enough of them to be worrying. I actually question whether the majority of these late-in-life-clansmen would have DARED to say half the shit they come up with now in their younger years (i.e. when there was a good chance of them being punched in the face).
And DO NOT get me started on all those crazy racists of the other races (read: all the other races). As a mixed race person in her twenties, I am OVERLY familiar with a vocal disapproval of mixed marriages/pro-creation. I see you. And I dismiss you as irrelevant in general... but still... Shut the fuck up.
Look, I get it, being old must be trying. And I BELIEVE in getting away with any fun thing you can. But don't be a dick about it. Pushing to the front of a queue is one thing, racial abuse is another.
Do I think the incident from my childhood was racially motivated? Frankly, no. Do I think they would have done it to a blonde child? Frankly no.
What I do think is, you don't get a pass from having to treat other human beings with respect just because your clock's been running longer. The opposite is true, if anything. That's why I'm always (within reason, no one's going for a sainthood) nice to the elderly and the middle aged and people in their twenties and thirties and children... but not teens. Fuck those teens.
We're all people. Act like it.
Except you, Teens. Stay awful.
PEACE.