About a month ago I was outside my house smoking a cigarette on my porch, it was late at night, past 3 in the morning, I had gotten off my shift about an hour prior and just wanted some nicotine to unwind. My neighbor across the yard, a black woman, opened her front door and stood in the doorway screaming incomprehensible gibberish at me. I couldn’t understand what the hell she was saying but she was very mad, she told me the cameras could see me and called me a fuck head before turning around and slamming the door.
I stood on my porch with my half smoked cigarette dangling between my fingers and my sleep deprived brain trying to figure out if that had actually just happened. I wondered how my occasional night smoking had set her off, maybe she thought I was spying on her? I had never spoken a word to this woman before despite seeing her walking around her property occasionally. One of my other neighbors told me he waved to her and she had just given him a cold glance, I guess she’s just one of those.
A couple weeks after that I was getting home from grocery shopping and I saw this woman and a police officer on her property, she was showing him around the exterior of her house. I walked up to my door and she pointed at me and told the officer “I’ve been having problems with him.” Surprised, I asked what was going on and the cop told me to just wait inside. I was not pleased by this as I hate talking to cops, furthermore I didn’t know what the fuck this woman thought I had done to her. I went inside and calmed my nerves, wondering if the cop was going to take her word over mine, call me paranoid but I’m well aware of how racialized things are in this country.
After a few minutes the cop knocked on my door, I answered and he was very curt, he asked me bluntly if I’d been removing the skirting from her porch and putting cats underneath her home. I simply told him I hadn’t, doing my best to hide my bewilderment, he thanked me and left. I sat down and laughed to myself, thinking it would be funny if I’d told the officer “Drat! I’ve been found out!” and threw my cat at him.
I don’t know what led her to believe I’d been smuggling cats into her crawl space as I’ve never been within 20 feet of her house and there is absolutely no proof of any kind that I did what she accused me of. And yeah as I mentioned before maybe there’s a racial angle at play, maybe she doesn’t like the crackers next door and this is her way of getting back at us. When dealing with people like this it doesn’t matter if you did anything to them or not, they’ll fabricate some reason to hate you based on nothing more complex than a look you gave them. I don’t know what mental issues cause them to act this way, all I know is that I don’t have the time or patience to deal with it.
There was also a situation at my work involving two zoomers, a guy named Joey and a girl named Victoria, both in their mid 20s. Joey was a skinny white dude who, by all accounts, was unassuming and kept to himself, I’d never had any problems with him or knew anyone else who had. His issue was the he was very paranoid and constantly thought other people were out to get him. Our boss had told Joey to put his phone away once and he was so upset by this he walked out, claiming our boss hated him, I don’t know if that’s a Gen Z persecution complex thing but suffice to say it was pretty cringeworthy. Things began escalating when he began accusing Victoria of plotting to get him followed home and jumped based on absolutely nothing.
For some reason Joey had it in his head that Victoria hated him and knew a couple of black guys who were planning on beating him up. Joey and Victoria had had a couple of confrontations our crew and I had been witness to but management hadn’t stepped in until one day they were fighting in front of the company owner’s son, he had to step in and allegedly heard Joey drop racial slurs and threaten to bring a gun in. I hadn’t overheard this but Victoria was scared enough to call the police and they both went home for the day, Victoria voluntarily. It culminated in Joey getting fired and for a couple nights afterward my boss told me to watch out during our smoke breaks outside. Apparently Joey’s friend at work told my boss that Joey had been asking if Victoria was at the building. I thought I left this ghetto hood rat bullshit behind when I left Detroit.
Do Americans really have it so good that they have to imagine people are after them? Or is this behavior a sign of some past trauma? Did someone do something to hurt either my black neighbor or my coworker before I met them? But maybe the best explanation for this is how we live in a low trust society where we’re constantly told about the threat we pose to each other multiple times on a daily basis. Do I think people are out to get me, besides my idiotic neighbor that is? Can’t say for certain but the fact that media outlets tell black and brown people that White men such as myself are directly standing in the way of their success well, it makes me a bit nervous. And I’m sure it makes those black and brown people nervous when right wingers tell White men such as myself that they’re the ones standing in the way of our success. Is it messed up to see people who look differently than me and think that they have it out for me? Yes it is, but in modern day America that’s a feature not a bug.