Anna, the mites and I were sitting in an almost crowded tube – on the way to a station to meet Will who was on his way back from wherever – when the youngest mite unexpectedly pointed his finger at me and loudly announced to no one in particular:
“Mummy have a BIG BLUE SPOT on HER BUM! BIIIG BLUUUE SPOT!”
You know that moment where everyone froze for a second?
It happened.
Only that second felt it lasted five minutes. Then, a small snigger broke the silence. That created a stream of chuckles, soft murmurs, knowing looks and amused glances at the mite’s way. Anna’s hand over her mouth didn’t give me quite an impression she wasn’t laughing. Oldest mite stared down at youngest, clearly thinking: “WTF?” And I was, well, frozen.
All the while, I was thinking: “Why? Why the fuck would you say that, mite? WHY?!”
I’m pretty sure he did it as an act of revenge.
He wasn’t happy when I took his plastic-covered book from his paws when I wanted to wash his hair. “Wait! I wanna see!” he cried while reaching for the book on floor, next to the bath. “You will, but let me wash your hair first,” I promised. “Nooo! Wanna see, wanna see, wanna see!” he cried rather pitifully while reaching for it even harder. I lost a bit of patience and snapped, “I’ll throw it away if you don’t pack it up! Please be quiet and let me wash your hair now.” He stared at me in shock for a moment, then pouted dramatically while I washed his too-long hair.
After the bath, he grabbed the book and dashed off to his room before I could dry his hair. When I went to his room to dry his hair, he eyed me with suspicion while gripping the book to his chest. I felt really awful, so I promised I wouldn’t ever throw it away. He didn’t respond with anything than another pout.
A couple of hours later: the announcement on tube.
Damn brat. Definitely takes after me, unfortunately. I was just as grudge-nursing as he is when I was at his age. A bit late now, but I’m sorry, Gran and aunts, for giving you such a hard time!
Nice to See that My Brother is Socially Aware, but Such a Bad Sense of Timing & a Bad Taste in Friends
I had a lovely birthday yesterday except for one thing: My baby brother and his friend were locked in an all-day debate about whether ethics were a first-world privilege. Both are at that age where they’re less self-centred and more politically aware, hence many heated debates.
They made a fatal mistake during my birthday dinner: a) continuing the debate during dinner and b) bringing up racism.
I had a knife in my paw, ready to slice the birthday cake, while I flirted with this idea of stabbing them with it when his friend announced: “It’s grossly unfair that we’re making stupid laws to protect foreign people from so-called racism and none to protect white people from reverse racism.”
My brother – who, may I point out, looks a bit like me – asked: “How do you know racism doesn’t exist? You’re white, aren’t you?” His friend snorted and said, “Don’t get me wrong. I know bad shit and all happened, but that was a long time ago. They’re using the race card to shit-stir, or excuse their inherent non-productivity. They’re a disgrace to their people.”
Will gave me long looks of “leave them to figure it out”, “don’t say anything” and “don’t stab him with that knife”.
So I stabbed sliced the cake instead.
But my resolve to keep peace started to crack when the friend bitched about reverse racism. And went on to share a couple of anecdotes to back it up:
a) there’s a lecturer who’s consistently graded his assignments between 60% and 70%. Never above. He felt he deserved better than those. (“I even blew off a hot date to finish it!”) The lecturer is clearly jealous of him and some classmates for being white so he punishes them with those average grades while giving better grades to non-white classmates who “didn’t even turn up most lessons”. Proof of Reverse Racism!
Oh, and they’re thinking of making a formal complaint to kick him out and bring in a white lecturer to “make it fair and balanced”.
b) He was joking around in a campus hall corridor when “some crazy bastards went aggro” on him for using some slang “they always use”. (I think he was referring to ‘nigga’ and the like.) He was also upset and shocked to learn that he can’t use words like “jigger” and “thicklips”, not even when joking, while they can describe white people however they like. Proof of Reverse Racism!
c) He was invited to see a cinema release, but he turned down the invitation with an explanation: it’s an [south] Asian film. Some called him on it. He pointed out Asians “don’t like watching white films” because they couldn’t relate to white actors, so why is he expected to watch “one of their films”? He’s not Asian (“and I’m no racist”), therefore it doesn’t interest him. It’s logical, he insisted, but they slammed him for it. They “didn’t even respect my right to be comfortable in my own skin”. Proof of Reverse Racism!
While he was saying all that, my jaw was on floor. My brother kept glancing at me, seemingly uneasily. I think he suspected I’d break every bone in his friend’s body. He was right. I would have. But it was my birthday. And our family has this strict policy against killing house guests.
So instead, I asked: “How would you like your slice? This small?”
I was so relieved when he left for home early this morning. I asked my brother if his friend’s views were common among their peers. He explained quite a few believed that reverse racism was becoming a serious problem, that “non-whites” were “abusing the race card” and that they felt there were “too many non-whites” in films, books, TV and music.
As I reeled back in shock, he quickly went to say that “there are lots who don’t believe all that crap”. He seems to believe we’re in middle of “a transition of normalising the non-white presence in mass communication”, so there’s a lot of adjustments going on. He also said he felt they will come round in a few years’ time and when they do, they wouldn’t bring up reverse racism again.
Judging by his friends’ comments, that’s rather optimistic of him. 
I mean, reverse racism? Really? There are people who actually believe it exists? Unbelievable.