My Home, Leighton Buzzard

Do you remember when we heard the white cis man from across the road shout “Go back to your own country” to mum? Someone had apparently hit their car, we hadn't been out of the house, but being one of the two ethnic minority families, we were picked on. They came screaming and raging, “you hit my car!!!”, looking for someone to blame. The fury we felt, do you remember? This is the same man, who when he is drunk and cant find the right change for food, orders a kebab from my Dad, has a joke and a laugh from him in hopes to get a discount. You know how mums English is limited. He tried to use his masculine energy to over power our older mum, swearing, passing racial and religious slurs “you don't belong here you pakis, go back and be a terrorist in your own country!”. We stepped to the door, and told him to calm down. We told him how disgusting it was that he thinks it’s okay to be able to say such things in this day and age, but he didn’t listen. We couldn’t resort to anything else so we called Dad. Shaking waiting for Dad to come over quickly, he was also angry, the fact that another man thought he had the right to shout at his wife and kids for something they didn’t do, we were just victims. My Dad is know as the kebab man who knocks people out with one punch, he always said “ I don’t fear anyone but Allah”. The guy saw the rage in dads eyes, and at first he tried to act cocky. But then realising my Dad is the same guy that gives him chips when he cant afford it in his drunk state, and that he wasn’t going to back down, he calmed down. Tried to crack a joke or two. Funny how hes only got power over women isn’t it. I can’t believe it’s still happening again all these years later. Especially after the first encounter in 2008, when we asked him if eh could move his car further back, because he parked it as close as he could to mums car and she couldn’t get out. this was a couple months after we first moved here. And it was the same slurs. I can’t believe it. But always remember, your anger will not help the situation, continue to kill them with your intelligence, and the way you hold yourself. Always show them that you have achieved more and do not let them diminish you to those slurs. Always rise above it.