It occurs to me as I walk down the streets towards the school that I am visibly angry. People look at me in surprise, they hurriedly get out of my way, they stare at me and talk in hushed voices, eyes following me as I pass. I suppose they think that I cannot figure out that they're talking about me.
Of course, they do the same thing even when I am not storming angrily down the street, my fists clenched at my sides. I'm used to it, I guess. I don't know. Since leaving home, it has happened so often – literally daily – that I guess I am just numb to it by now. I don't care anymore.
Let me rephrase that. I don't care, most of the time, when it happens to me.
I'm amazed at myself, frankly, at how angry I am that it is now happening to my son. The school has just called me to inform me that he had been involved in a “quarrel that became physical”, which is administrative school speak for “bullies beat him up”.
At least I think that's what they said. You see, I do not speak standard Matari. They, of course, do not speak our language, a language officially known as “Northern Peninsular Sebiestor”. Therein lies a piece of the problem. Mitja and I are from a distinct ethnic division of the Sebiestor tribe which does not speak the larger “Standard” Matari language. We speak an archaic form of Sebiestor – or linguists call it archaic, anyway, I am not sure what the hell that even means – which is quite distinct, and which is spoken by a relatively small population of some forty thousand people.
The school Mitja attends does not offer education in our language. That's ok, because Mitja does speak some of this “MSM” as it is called, and he wanted to go. I moved here, to a Tribe station in Eram, because I wanted to ensure that Mitja would have access to the best academic education possible. Good idea, yeah? I never went to school, you know? I didn't know how absolutely horrid schoolkids can be to one another, especially in a society as sharply divided along ethnic lines as ours.
The school is a private affair, for children from high – profile families, who's parents might be politicians or doctors or whatever... and which is supposed to be safe. I walk past the security guard who opens the door for me, and ignore it as he stares at me, a little forced smile on his face, that smile of smug assholish superiority that racists everywhere get when they behold those they feel superior to. I don't say anything. I never do. Not usually. Usually.
I hate it when people, well-meaning people, people who wish to be seen as your ally, your friend, say things like “If anyone treated me that way, I'd punch them in the face. No one talks to me that way.” They do not understand how offensive saying such a thing can be, implying that we don't do anything out of cowardice. Of course no one would say such a thing to them; they are not members of a minority group. Of course I'd love to punch someone in the face over it. Who wouldn't? They can't really see the situation, experience it, from our point of view. Very often, becoming combative just gives them the legitimization they are looking for, the “good reason”, to escalate such a confrontation. That's kind of what make's you “a minority”. You're always outnumbered. Get it?
I walk into the administrative office and stand at the little counter. One of the office workers, a young woman with blotchy skin named Hjala, nervously stands and walks to the counter. She seems to be the one person in this school who genuinely gives a damn about Mitja.
“Where is my son?” I ask in my terrible MSM.
“He's with the nurse just now, Shaman.” she replies. “Let me go get him, ok?”
I watch as she hurries off, and look at the other three office workers, two more women and a man. I don't smile at them. I don't have any reason to.
“Here he is.” Hjala calls out, walking with Mitja into the office. His face is very red, and he has obviously been crying, but he has no bruises or cuts that I can see. I bend down and pick him up, and take a better look when I have him at eye level.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” I ask him, speaking in our language now. I blow onto his forehead, to move a bit of his perpetually messy hair out of his face. I don't want them to understand what we're saying. They have not wanted to before, they don't need to now.
The principal had come out of her office by now, and was standing quite close to me, and must have figured out what I asked him. “Ms. Surionen, Mitja was arguing with...”
“I asked him.” I say, forcefully, cutting her off. “Not you.”
Mitja looks at the principal, and then back at me. I want to explode, to go off on these idiot people. I don't even know what happened, but I know why it happened. Mitja, just having turned five years old, now does too. “Can we go?” Mitja asks.
“Yeah.” I reply. I don't say another word to any one of them. I just turn and leave, and carry Mitja past that asshole guard. He holds the door and smiles at me again. I hope he gets hit by a fucking bus or truck or something. After some chicken fingers, Mitja tells me the story, that he was playing with a truck during recess and a group of boys came and took it from him. When he went to the toychest in the classroom to find something else to play with, they told him that they were playing with all of them and that he would have to wait.
Mitja picked a toy from the toychest anyway. He said he didn't really understand why they were acting like that, that he thought they were playing a game. They all just surrounded him, shoved him down, and then sat on him and kicked and slapped. Luckily, this was a group of four and five year olds, not fifteen year olds. Physically, Mitja was ok. He tells me he doesn't like that school and that he does not want to go there anymore. That's all I need to hear.
For a people who cry about racism, and unfair treatment, and all of that, a lot of Minmatar are hypocrites. We don't conform, I guess. We look different. We sound different. We live different and dress different and talk different and write different and cook different foods. Society doesn't like difference. This is what the Amarr do, isn't it? Force you to conform or treat you horribly?
I doubt I will ever say that out loud to anyone, of course. Outnumbered and all.
We move back to Matar later that evening. The tundra doesn't judge.
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Topic: Out of our Element (Read 2123 times)