The right to exist should be something as banal as cooking garlic and oil pasta. However, here we are: tired from having to fight for the minimum. No one is born with the same possibilities, but the deliberate blindness of those at the top is the most corrosive thing. Some people spend their lives fighting for the right to exist. What is the problem with seeing that? Why do people always want to be comfortable?
Why this pathetic obsession with maintaining comfort at the expense of nullifying the other? Being in an underprivileged position does not exempt anyone from criticism, but the question is: with what morals and from what place do you criticize?
I decided to vomit this text after witnessing strange manifestations here in Portugal, both in the real world and in the virtual environment, the virtual protozoa and the racists work on a 7/7 scale. Nothing that worries me, but the small doses of mediocrity are tiring. Being vulnerable, this attacks my anxiety and the only way I have to calm down is by watching football or writing as a form of exorcism.
Every time a micro xenophobic violence appears, my triggers fire in a domino effect. The defensive posture merges with the anxiety and a low budget horror movie projects all the moments of exclusion in my mind. This forms a mental Megazord (Did you like the Power Rangers reference? I did not!) built purely with the heavy metal of traumas.
I remember a specific guy well. He had criticisms of my work, but instead of acting like a basically honest person and talking to me, he preferred the cowardly tactic: he tried to paint me as a criminal to my boss. Fortunately he was fired. Well, his only notable characteristic was that he didn’t brush his teeth properly and I sincerely hope he disintegrates as a human being. Yes, I write these lines overflowing with resentment, and you know what? I feel a legitimate pleasure in hating racists and xenophobes. Hate, here, is a tool for preservation.
Last week at the supermarket’s bakery, a guy who was in front of me in line spent exactly 17 minutes arguing with a Brazilian employee because of a change in the bread of a sandwich he likes, and saying those insults we all already know. Seriously? Detail: the bread change was made by the supermarket, an order from above, not from the employee.
One more: the other day watching Real Madrid versus Benfica, the game with the terrible racist manifestation by the athlete Prestianni against the Brazilian Vinicius Junior. The Benfica fans in the bar delegitimizing the complaints of Vini and Mbappe. The phrases uttered were true crimes, like: “So now you cannot call a black person black anymore?”, “Cristiano Ronaldo in Spain was called a shitty Portuguese.” And at every moment they referred in a racist and violent way to the appearance of Vinicius Junior. “How is that woman dating this guy?” okay, who should she be with? one of you? I repeat: these people have a self esteem that should be a subject of study.
Want another? Two guys talking at Coimbra B Station referring to Brazilian women as beautiful, but brazilian funk listeners and not reliable. “They are hot, but they lie down with all men, just for fun”. If you see the smiling faces of those two infamous people…
What do all these people have in common? I invite everyone to answer mentally.
The people from the “periphery of the world”, who were bled for centuries under all imaginable violences, do not want privileges. They just want to live with dignity and recover the opportunities that were systematically stolen from. It is not asking too much, but for those who live off the sweat of others, it seems like an insult. I imagine all the immigrants who work in contact with the public and the amount of insults and violence they suffer, this is insanity. This is a portrait that we also have to work hard on improvements in our countries, although we know the genesis of the chaos and misery around the world.
I do not like to call these people rats out of respect for the noble and hard working rodent. And I am sorry for the comparison with protozoa and bacteria which have nothing to do with this, either.
I arrived at Soure station. I am getting off now, See you!
