I'm no psychologist but I'm convinced racism is an anxiety, an irrational fear of the unknown. I say this because today a man nearly got himself hurt to avoid walking next to me. Let me set the scene: I'm taking my usual route today, passing the golf course to get to the railroad tracks. As I get ready to make my left turn to begin my walk I notice an older white man walking in a slow pace to my right. I thought nothing of it I knew since I was walking slowly we were going to cross paths so I gave him plenty of room to walk next to me. I kept walking waving to neighbors and then noticed the man got off the sidewalk and ran past me onto oncoming traffic. I was baffled the man rather run past me in front of oncoming traffic rather than walk next to me on a sidewalk. When he got 10 feet ahead of me he came back on the sidewalk and walked at his normal pace. It kind of got me that he would rather hurt himself than suffer an awkward conversion with me.
But as I write this note I am doing some introspection. Why am I assuming it's racism? He can just be afraid of people. If I were another race maybe he would have responded the same way. It might have just been an awkward reaction to anxiety. I'm fighting my own demons as I mentioned on my first post. Maybe power is given to racism by just giving those thoughts power over our reactions. So I'll keep walking. I'll keep looking out for this man and see how he reacts when he passes others before I call it racism. I will still be kind to those I pass in the street. His anxiety will not get the best of me.
