"What year are you in school? What's your major? Oh, poli sci? That's cool, man, mom must be proud. You are almost done. Listen, I know what you are feeling, man. I have been called a nigger while in uniform. Sometimes, you gotta swallow that shit up and know, in your heart, that you are better than that. That you are better than them. Promise me you are gonna do that. You promise?"
I promised.
Backhandedly, I learned that I should have gotten in more fights in high school. After all, all it would have meant was to learn a big life lesson in a practical manner, rather than in a theoretical way. That way it felt emptier.
Always careful and rational, I missed the lesson that the classroom, church, or the bedroom could not have taught me. In essence, I understand the situation to be detrimental in a short-term: detentions, reputations, bad vibes, and distractions. And potential for it spiraling out of control.
My only fights, displays of anger, threatening shouting matches, and dealings with policemen were during my last year of college. And they were for all the reasons that the previous outbursts did not happen. It was the same desire to learn that prevented them before.
Hindsight, they call it.
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Me dicen el Matador de los cien barrios porteños, No tengo de que tener miedo, Mis palabras son balas, balas de paz, balas de justicia, Soy la voz de los que hicieron callar sin razón, por el sólo hecho de pensar distinto.
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