Stereotype {Omari}

Omari

I was dead tired from the basketball game me and my brothers just played.
Winning wore me out…haha.
I couldn’t wait to get home to take a shower.
My brothers and I found seats on the train, and placed our bags down. We remained standing.
“Man, we finna be the champions, shawty!” my brother Jamal yelled out. “You saw how I dunked on his ass?”
He started to do the motions.
He screamed out “Youuullll!” as he dunked on the imaginary man in front of him.
I laughed. “Man, whatever. I was the one making them threes!” I did a fade-away motion as I stepped backwards. “I was on point today, bruh.”
It felt good to win a game, and playing basketball was the only time I really ever got to see my old friends anymore. We were a winning team on the South side.
I took a look around the train and saw the guy we gave change to sitting on the other end of the train. His head was down, and it rocked with the motions of the train.
He seemed down and out, as if he felt he had no purpose.
I hoped things got better for him…there was no reason for a guy to seem so upset.
I know he wasn’t living the life we were used to…
I looked over at the white guy sitting alone across from us.
His expression looked as if he were startled because he saw black people on the train.
He probably doesn’t think I noticed him turn off his iPod as soon as he saw us.
What, did he think we were going to steal it?
He probably doesn’t think I see him staring at us out of the corner of his eyes…
I’m not stupid.
I’m used to it.
Everywhere I go with my brothers on the North side of Atlanta, we get stared at. My mother recently moved us to that area for a better life, but it seemed that no matter where we went, trouble followed us. It didn’t matter if we moved out of the hood, the darkness of the ghetto still left us in the shade.
I hated the way people looked at us on the North side- as if we didn’t belong there. As if we were scum. As if we had to ask permission before every move. Going to a new school with all those white people…it just made me feel so uncomfortable. Then the black kids who were there acted just like the white kids…
They acted like we were going to hurt them!
This makes you want to cause harm to them since they already have it fixed in their minds that you will!
Just because we couldn’t afford a polo short, dress shoes, and hundred dollar khakis, I guess we were lower than the others, huh?
What’s on the outside determines a man, right?
A skin color, right?
I was so sick of it.
He continued to stare indirectly.
I came to the conclusion that this stupid rich guy is either racist, or gay
-or both.
I tried to ignore him, but I got tired of him trying to watch us on the sly- but obviously not sly enough. It was time to dead this.
“Can I help you?” I asked him.
“Excuse me?” He seemed surprised as he looked at me, then my brothers.
“Can I help you?” I repeated myself. “You keep looking over at me and my brothers as if there may be a problem that we don’t know about. Maybe you can share it with us.”
“It’s a free country, man.” He responded. “I’ve just been looking around. Why are you being so paranoid? I just want to get home. Just like you.”
“Don't be stupid! Looking around is fine man, but you keep looking at us as if you’ve never seen black people before!” I was getting angry, and his nonchalant attitude was adding fuel to the fire. I hated being treated like the inferior.
“Leave that faggot alone, bruh.” My brother Tee-Jay grabbed my arm. “It’s not that serious. This our stop. Fuck his gay ass.”
We grabbed our bags, and as we exited I looked back at the gay guy. He was staring back. I shook my head.
“Haha, that man in there thought you were cute, boy!” Jamal cried out. I pushed him away from me. “With his ol tight shirt wearing ass looking like his fat just wanna be set free got damn!"
I laughed. My brothers knew how to cool me down. "Where mama said she was gonna meet us at?”