Conversations about home (at a deportation centre) - Warsan Shire

In response to this morning's resignation of David Cameron and the news that Brexit has become  reality with the inward looking nationalist government coming to power in October, the only thing on my mind, and on the minds of many in the U.K - is the plight of immigrants. Both, those who have found a safe place in the U.K and those who are yet to arrive. 

This is a piece by poet - Warsan Shire. It speaks for itself:

Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I've been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there’s no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I’m bloated with language I can't afford to forget. 

They ask me how did you get here? Can’t you see it on my body? The Libyan desert red with immigrant bodies, the Gulf of Aden bloated, the city of Rome with no jacket. I hope the journey meant more than miles because all of my children are in the water. I thought the sea was safer than the land. I want to make love but my hair smells of war and running and running. I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you're young and asleep. Look at all these borders, foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate. I’m the colour of hot sun on my face, my mother’s remains were never buried. I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck, I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body. 

I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory. I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officer, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home. But Alhamdulilah all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, or a truckload of men who look like my father, pulling out my teeth and nails, or fourteen men between my legs, or a gun, or a promise, or a lie, or his name, or his manhood in my mouth.

I hear them say, go home, I hear them say, fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second and the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun. I'll see you on the other side. "

*Originally published in TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH (2011).

Why cleaning out your social media account can be as good as cleaning out your closet

Social media - facebook. instagram, tumblr, twitter - you know the rest - are to say the least, places where we express who we are at that moment in time, in that space. And over time they tend to become strange amalgamations of moments of projection as they pass our lives.

There is much criticism of social media on... social media. You need to be blinder than a bat to not see the irony in that. I am not here to advocate for or against social media but just to briefly point out that it is natural for us, over our lifetimes to grow and evolve.

If you're in your twenties or thirties at the moment, you're most certainly not the same person you were ten years ago, and it was around ten years ago that Facebook came to be  (most of us in Africa however, have it for 7 years or  much less). While it can be fun to look at pictures from ten years ago, as we all tended to do in the days of good old picture albums, it may not be in our own self interest to constantly be reminded of how we used to be, not only ten years ago, but last year, last summer or last week.

Social media, in particularly Facebook, constantly reminds us of times bygone. This can be good for us, no doubt, reminding us of happy memories. But it can also be fucking shit.

As it reminds us of who we used to be we often...:

- become nostalgic
We've all gotten those feelings, recalling how we used to look, or what we did, and who we did it with.

-pine for things that are gone
Coupled with the nostalgia we long for things that have passed us by sending ourselves into a suboptimal stupor.

-put on rose tinted glasses
The nature of memories and recollection, unfortunately, is that we omit many many details about the reality of the situation. We put on rose tinted glasses and romanticise people, places and things we would not if we were probably 100% objective.

- are reminded of the past and in the worst case triggered in a negative way. 
A friend of mine recently mentioned that in the last few years she's had atleast three exes and made the point that facebook's memory function reminds her of things she would rather not remember at all.

and...

- are not present
This is the most important of them all. Combining a little of all the aforementioned factors social media has the potential to detracts from our lived experience in this moment. And in order to be who we are right now we need to detach from those bygone experiences.

For these reasons, I not only think that occasionally cleaning out ones social media account can be worth the tedious scrolling through old photos and posts but is also a little bit like uncluttering your mind. Or cleaning out your closet.

When our clothes date and wear we don't hesitate to let them go. Why should we then hold on to little snippets of our lives manifested by status updates and photographs online. We should do whatever it takes to give us improved peace of mind and a more equanimous environment to love ourselves.

This can involve:

• Deleting old posts, statuses and photographs. 
• Unfriending people with no shame. 
• Blocking people who put you in a bad space and spread their negative vibes. 
• And, taking ownership of your online space. 

Feng shui that shit so that it works for you!

Go on... Spring clean and compartmentalise a little. Unclutter your online life.
And do it as often as you need.

Thoughts on the Orlando Pulse massacre by a queer South African muslim

The mass shooting of defenceless LGBTQIA members of our society Orlando marks a collective stain on our humanity, make no mistake - where those already vulnerable in society are gunned down by a man with an automatic war machine and picked off like vermin in a space supposed to be safe. It is not just a problem for the US, but one for all of us at large. Thirteen years ago in South Africa 9 men were executed in a gay safe space in one of our country's own hate massacres. We are quick to forget about the Sizzlers massacre and the hatred of the two men who perpetrated it. We are not exceptional, we are not immune. Section 9 of South Africa's democratic constitution guarantees that nobody, including the state, should be allowed to unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. Yet daily we hear stories of violence against members of our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters- corrective rape, stigmatisation, assault, abuse. It goes on. We allow those around us to foster casual discrimination, to say things that denigrate the LGBTQIA community and dehumanise the love between people. And the worst of it- just when the LGBTQIA community finds a safe space we have individuals and groups who are determined to destroy them. This is not us. This is no religion or faith. This is no teaching of love or spirituality. It is not Islam now or ever. It is not heroism or grandiose masculinity. It is the deepest and darkest of evils perpetrated by the worst of our society, designed to further divide us. We cannot allow people to claim their hateful causes in the name of us all. And we should certainly not judge a whole group by the actions of a hateful few. Perpetrators of violence are in no way unique to those who incorrectly profess Islam. They are found in all corners of society- in Sandy Hook, in Columbine, in Virginia Tech, in Norway. We cannot deflect from our failings to stop hatred, to stop access to war machines, to protect our most vulnerable. We are jointly and collectively responsible. And we bleed for it.

Say their names. Remember their faces. 

But we will not be divided. As Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, gay, straight, bisexual, black, white, coloured, Asian, Indian, woman, man, trans, and all the other shades of these. We are together against hatred and violence. We stand with Orlando, we stand on the side of love that knows no label. And our struggle will continue.

*Published with permission of the author - Ziyaad Bhorat.

Bitches be cray - Reflections on a toxic friendship

So this is a post about that crazy bitch ass friend we all have -
Toxic
Manipulative
Just a general DB*

While my tone may seem facetious, this subject is truly non-trivial. Friends are the culmination of our thoughts, values and approach to life. They are our mirrors - reflecting back to us what we put out in the universe. This does not apply to all friends though. Especially not the pathological ones, who we obviously do not detect are bordering on psychopathy.

For almost a decade I struggled with a friendship that was completely and utterly abusive. Emotionally destructive. Over the last couple of years, I have noticed - on social media and in various other places that awareness about "toxic" friendships is becoming more and more common. This is a wonderful thing.

In light of the trauma  and mind-fuckery I experienced at the hands of this toxic human being I would like to share my experience. Here was this woman, smart, reasonably good looking, blessed in terms of intellect, personable, relatable, fuck-off manipulative but let's call it charismatic. We hit it off like a house on fire. How was it possible to get along so well with someone? We were obviously meant to be friends. Well not really, and this is why.

These people are usually highly intelligent and probably have a higher level of mirror neurons (that characteristic that manipulative people have that allows them to transform depending on the audience)  than anyone else you may know. They are social chameleons, chopping and changing who they are to suit those around and in front of them - but the toll that this takes is that they spend so much time and energy transforming to appeal to others that they do not have any authentic or deep relationships.

Importantly the characteristics of a toxic friend from my experience have centered around the theme of their abuse being so subtle that their corrosive characteristics went over my head for years. It is only now, in hindsight, years later that I am able to identify the warped characteristics this "friend" possessed. They are as follows:

-This person is clingy - they want to know what you're doing doing, who you're doing it with and expect to be responded to immediately.

-This person is competitive to the point of it being unhealthy - This applies to everything, grades, promotions, hairstyles, clothes, and yes lovers. This can get so bad and if it was anything like my case it got to the point where where mutual friends and ex-boyfriends would be a point of competition. That is, she would go out of her way to compete for the affection of people in our circle who were closer to me than her. This weird and constant sense of  one upmanship was emotionally exhausting.

- This person is usually prescriptive about how you should live your life, saying things  like:
"I know you and I know whats best for you."
"Noone will ever love you as much as I love you"
"Noone will ever accept you the way me and my family have"...
You catch the drift (fucckkeeddd upppp shiiiitttt).

-This person tends to be confused about their identity, and is generally a deeply insecure person.   Their identities are usually rooted it in superficial things (what car they drive, what they have that's better than yours, overly materialistic sometimes, and exceptionally selfish).

- This person's closest relationships are abusive and unhealthy - for instance the relationship with their partner, lover or parents. In other words, if you took an objective step back and took a look at their close relationships you would notice a trend of dysfunction, abuse, unhealthy enabling, and destructiveness.

- This person transgresses trust  by disclosing personal information to others - or embellishing personal facts and sharing it in contravention of confidence. For instance, after a break up this person told others that my ex-partner had abused me. This was completely and utterly untrue and I only came to know of it years later when I heard it from the person to whom it was told.

- Other people have had similar experiences with this person - and there is a trend of people falling out of this person's life because of this toxic behaviour. This is important as this is the dead give away that the problem is not with you, and this is a reminder that you are sane and your experiences are valid.

- You never know where you stand with this person and there is a general feeling of inauthenticity. It never truly feels like this person has your best interest at heart despite them saying so all the time with statements like "No one will ever love you as much as I love you".

When it comes down to it I can't explicitly highlight single incidents that occurred that marks this relationship as abusive, but an old friend described it very well - she said that when you are around a person like this you leave with a horrible feeling inside you - like this interaction was not good for your soul.

In my experience the emotionally trauma was never explicitly denied by her saying that she never said the horrible things she did - it was more that the things she would do and say were so outrageous I'd feel like I must have dreamed them up because no ordinary well-meaning human being would ever do or say something like that. Here is an example (enjoy):

Her: Do you want to come over to my place?

Me: Nah, I'm tired I'd rather go home.

Her: Just as well, because if Mark* sees you he would wanna fuck you instead of me...

Me: ... !!!

Yes, if you gasped that was the right reaction... Who the FUCK says something like that? This was a mild and humorous example but imagine years of being around someone who says these things, that you keep discounting as jokes, or quirks, and one day you wake up and realise that they're actually just deeply fucked up.

So once again, while my tone is facetious, I am so dead serious about the fact that we need to let go of these people, and I am also fully aware of the fact that cutting people out is not simple, or the best response for our own well being. If I could say something to myself five years ago, when I was emotionally drained by the relationship it would go something like this:

The remedy for toxic friendship is self-care and self-trust and of-course self-love. 

"Trust your feelings  you are not crazy.

Do what you need to do to protect your mental sanctity, if you need space take it, if you need to have  a conversation, have it, and if you are unable to do anything, don't feel disempowered. It is okay. Just realising that this relationship is unhealthy means you are making strides.

You are love, incarnate, so surround yourself with others who love and cherish you!" 

And finally,

"Remember that healing takes time, and these scars run deep, so go easy on yourself". 

Peace and love. Revolution. For yourself. For always.

*Usually DB means douchebag.. but here it means something way worse...
**Mark is obviously a fake name 
***Poem:  Nayyirah Waheed

Working - as a person of colour and survivor of abuse

The transition from being a student to working is tough. The trade that you make for financial "freedom" comes at the cost of your time and autonomy.

Those of us who are lucky enough to do work we at lease somewhat enjoy, still face countless struggles in trying to adapt to the peculiar dynamics of the work force. In the work place, the social norms are not like they are outside. As much as organisations proclaim to be "flat", "title-free" and non-heirarchical by the nature of work itself, there is a heirarchy - someone with twenty years of experience in a field is going to have an advantage over someone with just one year of experience.

The idea of a flat organisational structure is thus untrue. It is especially untrue if you are a minority, a double minority or a triple minority. Let me explain. Single minorities are those who are let's say, black. Double minorities are those who may be black and queer, or black and female. Triple minorities are those who may be black, female and disadvantaged in some other way - perhaps a survivor of abuse.

South Africa is a country with one of the highest violence against womxn and children rates in the world. Violence against womxn is so commonplace that it has been accepted as part of society and in many cases, even among those highly educated and well resourced, is not questioned. Add the more subtle components of verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect into the equation and we have an entire cohort of humxns of colour (and a few not of colour) who have suffered at the hands of some abuser - whether it be in their family, a traumatic experience, in the education system, in their community or inherited trauma attributable to the nature of the apartheid state.

There are many such humxns who have been able to forge an education for themselves, and have made the transition into the working world. The challenges these humxns face in the working world is unlike those of their peers and their likely seniors - most of whom have benefitted from the system designed to take care of them. A system that speaks their language and caters to their needs. Most of whom are - let's face it - white, or male,  and often white males.

Working in an environment such as this for a person of colour is challenging for the following reasons:

We stand out like a flapping fish in a stack of hay. The way we operate is different. This is not to say that we do not have what it takes to banter and cope with our privileged counterparts, but merely that we are not of their world. Everything we do is different. We see the world differnetly to the way they do. Even the things we listen to, eat, and laugh at are different. And right here lies the age old dilemma that comes from this whitewashed world - we have to make the effort to acclimatise to them. For instance, over the  years I have learnt to roll my R's less hard and soften my tone less I be referred to as "intense"(code for too black, too ghetto, too rough).

Equal treatment does not exist. By asking to be treated equally as a womxn (and humxns) of colour I am not asking you to treat me equally as shitty as you do my male counterpart (while I get paid less) or equally as crap as you were treated when you were at my level. I am asking for you to treat me with the dignity that you would your child, or your senior. That basic human dignity. Not to be a general bigot - which is clearly too much to ask for.

Our life experience is one of trauma and abuse. This is all day everyday, day in and day out. The microaggressions we face - as tiny as they may sound: "What kind of a childhood did you have that you didn't read Harry Potter?" "How did you not know what Mean Girls was?"  You don't see me walking around asking them "How do you not know Mzekezeke?" "How have you never seen yizo yizo?" "How have you never watched jam alley?""Remember the presenter from Selimathunzi?" This is what I was doing while you were at boyscouts and summer camp. This is what I was doing while you were holidaying in Italy and the Americas.

More seriously, because many of us grew up in households that may not have been emotionally stable, so that we had to protect ourselves from physical, verbal and emotional abuse - we learnt how to cope so that we could get here. Which brings me to my main point: This history of abuse means that we (people of colour and survivors) process "criticism" in the workplace differently.

When your white boss tells you that you are stupid, or that your work outputs are useless, discards them infront of you, and tells you that you can not be trusted, this can be triggering. Triggering of an already vulnerable center of self. Triggering of a lifetime of abuse resting beneath the surface.

As someone who is a survivor of intense abuse, criticisms brought up in an authoratative, superior tone are triggering indeed. Triggering to the point where I find myself unable to work in the wake of the trauma that surfaces. And do I have an outlet to express it? No. I have to get up and get back to the grind as is expected of me. Except now with the self-doubt imbued by an overly critical senior. There is a serious lack of compassion in these environments.

This post is not a cry for coddling or special treatment - it is simply stating a fact. We have suffered at the hands of people with more power than us for too long. This translates to no difference in the work environment. In fact work environments can be more triggering or traumatising because of processes that are in place to protect the company.

One such process is the HR function. Saying that HR has your best interest at heart is like saying that the tax man has it in your best interest to ensure that you do your finances properly. The purpose of HR is to make sure that our grievances do not turn into trouble for the company. This puts any employee in an immediate position of less power - automatically unlikely to trust the function - now couple that with being non-white and non-resourced and this only amplifies.

We are constantly treading water. Not consciously obviously. Consciously we graft, we work hard, we succeed, we exceed.  Subconsciously brewing in the background are the ways we were taught to believe that we are less than, and these come out so clearly in this environment of smoke, daggers and unbalanced power.


*Disclaimer: I do truly enjoy my job at times and do not want to quit. If you know me then this post is just an abstraction and refers to no particular incident - but an amalgamation of incidents over the years.  
** No shade to HR - just stating facts. 

Song for a lover of long ago

I suppose public fora are generally not the places one should pine over lost lovers. Not that I'm pining.

The great thing about writing anonymously is that one can be truly honest. And I intend on making the most of it. Inherent in all of us is this part of our psyche that tends to activate after some slight inebriation. This zone that activates makes us think about lovers that were and what we would do to be able to just let them know x, y, or z.

This happens to me every now and then and I suppose Valentine's day is a sort of catalyst for it happening again. So...on this note, and not inebriated at all, but after much thought if I could say something to my lover of long ago, it would go something like this:

"I miss your hands and your laugh. I miss the detachment and the thrill.

I miss your muscles. I miss your shoulders.  I miss your technique. I miss your general douchebaggery and that feeling when you were - fleetingly - not a douchebag. Ahhh the satisfaction of knowing that I can get you to be nice.

I miss how I thought you were so dumb but didn't care because I was insanely attracted to you. To the point where I may or may not have fantasised about our beautiful kids and compromised with myself in my head about their intellect.

Do you know that you were my best? I didn't even know... Until a couple of years later when I realised that you were so good it didn't even register... I really want you to know it - even now - but I can't admit it to you because we're not there yet. In fact we would never have ever, ever been there.

I remember the disappointment when you were less than I bargained for, but ended up being more than I bargained for in terms of execution. Well done.

I remember caring so little that I could just drunk dial - no - sober dial, text and facebook you not giving a fuck if you thought I was desperate.

Then I remember what a big part of the game was getting you under my control. And I don't miss it that much anymore... except that I do. Especially two weeks before my period, when my hormones are out of control."

Ofcourse in no real world would one ever let ex-lovers know these things. In  reality a lot of these exploits were just temporary distractions from deeper realities. And that is precisely what makes them so fucking awesome. So fun.

I recently learnt that the thrill of the chase actually activates the same center of the brain that cocaine does. And let me tell you... I have felt it. And still feel it. Even chatting to exes makes me excited. Not sexually. Maybe excitable is a better word. There's a rush. Do you like hearing from me? Do you still think about me?

It's all really ego-centric. To the point that it is shameful.

But - I have come to accept it as my guilty pleasure. I mean I know, and I am sure every person who asks themselves the question will know, that these are fictitious characters. They are so fictitious that the pining for a lost lover of long ago is not the pining for one  particular lover at all. It is a pining for the combined feelings that these pursuits have given birth to. The spontaneity. The fun. The excitement.

However, with the honest reflection comes... well, the honest reflection. It definitely does not take too much digging to realise that these humxn beings were never going to be deeper connections. There is a beauty in that kind of non-attachment and freedom to be oneself and concerned with oneself fully that means attracting people who we are just not going to invest in. And that is okay as long as there is a sense of self-awareness, and restraint. As long as there is not a pathological component. As long as we are able to weigh up the costs and the benefits and put self-care first.

Ofcourse I could write about how unglamorous these interactions really are. But who wants to read about that - especially on the Saturday night before Valentine's day.

So how about we keep it light and all you humans go make a new song for a lover that will one day be lost too.

The Guys in the Beamer

Violent crime is something that we implicitly accept as South Africans. It is part of our social contract - what that means is that it is simply the price we pay for having so much in a country that has so little. This does not justify crime when it does happen, but it is an (unfortunate) reality of where we live.

This post is not one about the traumatic experience I had being followed home, hijacked and having had my partner assaulted about a year and a half ago. But rather about the trauma that ensued thereafter... and how patriarchy fits into all of it.

I am no stranger to violence. This does not mean that I want violence to be inflicted on me, just that it takes higher than average levels of violence to illicit a response from me (see: walking the line between two worlds).  The episode that ensued surrounding the day of my graduation - the day I was hijacked - was exceptionally traumatic. It heightened my sensitivity to the way our shamefully male entitled society functions as follows:

Given that it was graduation season I had  a couple of obligations on campus. This particular obligation was a prize giving ceremony. Unfortunately I was hijacked the night before and could not get out of the ceremony that was taking place that day. I was up until 4 a.m, after waiting with my partner in the waiting room of a hospital until he was admitted and kept for observation. I should not have been driving. I was sleep deprived and shocked. In either case I borrowed a car and made my way to this prize giving ceremony...

On my way, I could barely focus on driving, and was expectedly shaken up. As I got closer to campus I decided to take the road that goes behind Baxter and behind Graca Machel as a shortcut to upper campus (as opposed to the main road that boasts a lot of traffic). Driving on this secluded road I passed by a few guys in a BMW. A blue BMW. They hooted as I drove passed them. I kept driving, and as I looked into the rear view mirror I saw that they were driving behind me.

"They can't be following me" I said to myself out loud. This can not be happening. Not after last night. I speed up. They speed up too. I take a short right, they follow, we find ourselves in the parking lot of the girls residence Graca Machel. I drive up to the gym, they follow. I start hyperventilating. Maybe they were coming to the gym. I stop dead and pull up the hand break. They stop dead next to me. My heart is in my chest - this exact situation played out less than 12 hours ago, and ended poorly. My partner's bloody head flashes before my eyes. I get out of the car, choking on my tears and lack of air and shout out to them:

"Please stop following me, I am not a racist, I was hijacked last night, the guys... followed me home, they followed me, I have a prize giving on upper, I am not a racist..."

They start laughing and get out of the car. The driver gets out last and asks me if I need help, why I am driving and if they need to escort me to upper campus. I vehemently decline.

"No, no, I'M FINE." I repeat.

Tears streaming down my face and heart palpitations a bit calmer I get into the drivers seat and make my way to the prize giving.

After the prize giving I have to drive back home, on the exact same route I was followed on less than 24 hours ago. I can barely breathe. I start wailing and the tears are endless. I make it home. When I narrate my story to the people I am staying with I am met with much sympathy but also the response that I could have "manifested" the guys in the beamer following me...

I have thought about what happened that day at least a thousand times since it happened. Riddled with guilt at the fact that I thought these men did something wrong and my cringeworthy defense that I was not racist. I knew that these were "good" guys, I mean it was obvious that they were definitely not going to attack me in broad daylight. So then why did it affect me so deeply? Why did them following me shake me up so much? Was it a pure projection of my trauma from a mere few hours ago? Why did I feel so violated?

Fast forward eighteen months and I am sitting at a dive bar in town next to a friend of a friend. This friend of a friend - Andile* - says that he has been meaning to ask me for a long time if I recall an incident that happened around upper campus the previous December. Apparently his friends narrated to him that they followed this pretty girl who pulled over and turned out to be really frantic and a total mess and also happened to have been hijacked the night before. Of course we come to the conclusion that they were talking about the same girl because her exotic description matched up with what Andile suspected would be me.

I apologised frantically to Andile, and asked him to please let the guys know that I was really traumatised and was not racially profiling them.

On the way home I still felt uneasy... Why was I apologising? Was I really feeling so bad that I hurt these guys' feelings by profiling them because of my traumatic response? And then it occurred to me.

It doesn't matter that these guys in the beamer were not going to assault me with a machete or steal the car I was driving. What mattered was they they felt that it was completely within their rights to follow me.  In what world is this okay?

On any other day I may have laughed it off, or ignored it. But not that day. My heightened awareness and vigilance did not allow me to "brush it off".

I now understood why that incident gnawed at my psyche for so long. These mother-fuckers thought that it was totally okay to follow a womxn whom they thought was attractive. To keep following her when she sped up clearly indicating that she was not interested, and then to laugh, and as an after thought offer to be "chivalrous" and escort the poor soul to where she was going.

These mother-fuckers harassed me, violated my space, then insulted me by asking to "escort" me. Did they not realise that had they just left me alone I would have been alright? Did they not see that they have no business intimidating a person in that way? Aside from the fact that I was outnumbered what they did was so wrong, on so many levels.

This makes me sad. It also makes my blood boil. As a womxn I have come to put the feelings of men above my feelings. I wonder now how many times I have let incidents like this slide by me unnoticed. Coming back to the social contract under which we live, I am saddened that criminals are only identified as gangsters who hack people open with their machetes - not people who violate our space and cross boundaries because of their sense of entitlement awarded to them by their genitals. These microagressors walk around unnoticed and are constantly among us.


*Andile is obviously a fake name
**I feel like this post is controversial but I am unapologetic for writing it. More than willing to engage on it though.