Conscious that I tread into murky waters, I tread carefully.
(Where I live is multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic. Thankfully, the outward manifestations of racism are passive. We don't get too many reports of racially motivated attacks. Of course, the rhetoric is different, and while I'm not condoning it, there's a big difference between an ignoramus mouthing off in a pub, and firebombing someone's home. And this is not intended as a comment on the ingrained institutional nature of racism, nor on inequality of opportunity etc)
Yesterday, I was sitting on Streatham Hill station waiting for a train to Croydon. Hearing a strange noise, I looked behind me to see a young black man riding his bike down the stairs to the platform. Baseball cap on backwards, earphones clamped to his ears, his face and body language yelling aggression. He rode the bike at speed along the platform, stopping only at the furthermost bench, where he dismounted, to sit. Not on the seat of the bench, but on the back, his feet resting on the seat, where some innocent will later place their clean trousers/skirt.
There was nothing wrong in what he did - certainly not criminally wrong. However, if I were not a Sandal wearing Guardianista, I would have been intimidated, and thinking 'Typical, aggressive, black man'. I looked around - on either side of me were black men of about my age. One staring into space, clearly lost in thoughts and daydreams. Another reading the manual for his phone (a man reading a manual?). Further along a twenty-something black man read his book. On the other platform, a sixty something black man read his Daily Mail. A late-teened black man paced around in that aimless waiting-for-a-train way, matching Ray-United-Airlines in his pacing.
All of those black men, like everyone else on the station, were going about their everyday life, not drawing attention to themselves. The faces of those close to me were gentle - the faces of good fathers, loving partners, conscientious workers.
Yet, for most people, the stereotype of a black man was that idiot riding his bike down the stairs and along the platform. I wonder whether he knows or cares about his image. Do I, as a middle class white woman, have any right to even comment? Should he change his image to confront, rather than pander to, the stereotypes of Middle England? Am I not being prejudiced in even noticing? And not until then noticing the characteristics of anyone else? Is my dislike of him a subtle - or not so subtle - form of racism, or is it a justifiable and justified dislike of aggressive anti-social behaviour?
