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I made a commitment at the beginning of this diary project to record barely conscious racist thoughts. Over the past couple of weeks I have become more conscious more often of those fleeting thoughts or assumptions.

There's a man who lives in our building, who for no rational reason, I believe is a Muslim extremist, possibly someone with a past in fundamentalist terrorism.

I'm not exactly sure why I leapt to this conclusion about a man I actually know nothing about. From his appearance, I know that he never smiles, that he has a scar down one side of his face which might, on the other hand, be some kind of palsy. He speaks some gutteral sounding language which may or may not be Arabic and he has gatherings with small groups of men who wear shabby suits or traditional Asian Muslim dress. Listing these few observations about this man, I realise I have no idea why I have imagined this particular background for him. Oh yes, and I have seen him drive a big new 4WD and meet with people who drive mercs. For me, only dealers and crims drive those sorts of cars.
On reflection though, I have hired cars that happen to be mercedes for one reason or another and I also know people who have big fancy cars and they may in fact drop me off at my house sometimes.
hmm... I guess I'll have to think about this one some more.

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