There are Many Cultures in America
I hope this post finds you well.
This story happened to me when I was in elementary school. I think I was in the 3rd or 4th grade. I was walking home with my good friend Tom. A person I had known for several years now. He was in the 6th grade at the time. Tom was older than I but occasionally he would walk to and from school with me.
This time he had two other friends with him, who I had never seen before. They were of Tom’s age and a lot bigger than me, nor did he introduce them to me. I do not know why, also, we were walking a little faster than normal. As we were getting a little closer to the end of the school yard border the two other guys started to be a little obnoxious followed by belittling me. A kind of attempt to induce fear into me. They would oscillate from being extremely happy, giving me the impression I was one of their friends, to the opposite. Inducing fear by walking right up to me then taunt me. But just as I backed off, they would retract and go back to smiling and joking. However, since I was with Tom I did not mention anything, they were on the scarry side and thought this was normal.
Suddenly out of nowhere one of the two guys pulled out a knife. A sizeable one with a big handle and several inches blade. This was not a Swiss army knife. He started bragging to Tom and his friend while thrusting the knife in the air. He then looked at me menacingly and started to jab the knife toward me getting closer and closer, taunting me to react. Tom and his other friend were just staring and watching me.
He jabbed several times at me and was continuously approaching and backing off, all the while taunting me. I just wanted him to stop. For a moment I thought I could grab his knife with my left hand and push him to the ground. At this time fear got the most of me and I started to approach him. Just as I was going to act out against him, I know that was stupid. Tom and his other friend interjected and forcefully pulled to knife yielding guy away. Followed by all three of the guys laughing with pleasure and kidding around as if nothing had happened.
It does not end here. What he said after being pulled away is what I remember the most. To this day I cringe. First thing he said was “If I was seen with this knife I would be brought to the principal’s office.” “If they saw me thrusting at you, they would have called my parents in.” “If I had cut you, they would kick me out of school and I would send me to vocational school.” Then he mentioned if he had seriously cut me, he would be tried as a juvenile.
I was never told to bring a knife to school or even taught how to use it. The types of consequences that would occur, this is way out of my culture and was scarry to me. He almost killed me, meanwhile the scene would go from happy, everybody is calm to I am going to kill you and taunting me. Then he was forcefully backed off followed by more laughing and things are happy again. In retrospect, I think this was planned. To condition or groom, me, I guess, A type of street theatre maybe.
This is all very foreign to me and not a part of my culture. My family was not like this. My parents did not teach me how to use a knife against another person. We did not even discuss this. These guys are from a different culture. They were taught what they could get away with at a very early age. They knew what the consequences would be under each possible outcome. They taunted me in a specific way to induce trauma or to condition me. Teach me to fear them, I guess. Either way, I was targeted. Maybe they were conditioning me or grooming me to fear them.
This brings me to a statement that most politicians seeking office say, “We are a nation of immigrants.” Although, I believe this is partly true, I say we are more so, a nation of cultures. Throughout our history individuals and families immigrate here, so too, organized crime cultures did. We seem to think that people who came here left their culture behind and embraced the American culture. Became loyal to our constitutional republic. Unfortunately, this is not so. There are many that brought their old-world culture and prejudices with them. There are cultures today that are trying to transform us. Make us more like what they want us to be.
I will not tell you what I believe these cultures are. I know they are revenge based and if you go against them your sons and grandsons will pay for it. Nor do I seek help from our state and federal government institutions, because they are slow to act and composed of the very people.