Trying To Endure

Chapter Twenty-Three

I was requested to either record a statement or write one, and concluded with the latter.

"This is why," says Naila, "it's so useful to have two guys from a rich family on your side. Scratch that, two guys whose personality trait are their parents."

"And aunt," says Jasmine.

I expect gossip of the horrible suicide. Rather, it is the gossip of Derek. Growls and grumbles. Whispers and snarls. Smiles and smirks. Laughter and snorts. Shouldn't Bodie Banks have an identical reprisal? Then I remember these people don't know the whole story. They know Bodie Banks as the black guy in homeless clothes. The black guy who raped a white girl. The black guy who sold drugs for a living.

The truth is that Bodie Banks was the black guy who was perhaps the product of a global, institutionally-racist system. He was the black guy who was raped by girls, who was on the verge of literal homelessness and so dealt drugs out of desperation.

The world will be bothered to listen to a rich white person. If it was a person of colour, or even a person of no riches (regardless of their race), it won't be the same. It raises the question: if I come forward, will they believe my confession of Bodie Banks, or do I need ... support?

Camila and Aashvi are clever. They knew what they were doing: took their privilege, money, parents, and background as an advantage and hammered Bodie Banks dead, and as a result, Bodie truly ended up as a corpse by suicide. He was trying to endure, yet lost that prepossessing hope as he grabbed the poles of prison.

Bodie Banks was and continues to be an epitome of suffering. He was and continues to be an epitome of reality. He was and continues to be an epitome of inequality.

My first crush was at fourteen, on a dark-skinned boy called Thiago. He found out I fancied him, came up to me and spat in front of a crowd that he doesn't like me as I am half-Asian — apparently, that makes me ugly. I was more baffled than upset. How can one's ethnicity and race determine whether they are beautiful or not? Frankly, each nation, each tribe, each race, and each culture is mesmerising.

During this time, Dad and Mike were at home. Mum and Makayla were shopping. Papa and Nana visited. I told them why I had a long face. Papa was furious. Dad shouted at Ethan to come downstairs, and we assembled in the dining room.

Dad was in a muscle shirt and camo trousers, his traditional Crucifix Cross and matrimonial ring shimmered. Almond-shaped cognacs flamed. 'All races are capable of racism. Do you understand that?'

Ethan and I nodded. Mum's side, minus Aachchie and Seeya, was prejudiced against Dad. At one point, they recommended Mum see a therapist. Why? Mum was expected to marry a traditional Sri Lankan man or a partner of their colour.

'All races,' said Dad, 'are capable of receiving racism, including the oppressor.'

'The Irish and the British,' said Nana as an example. Short hair and wrinkled skin. 'The conflicts between religions. Religion can be used to control people.'

'Catholicism,' said Papa, 'has been used to control several people of other faiths.'

'You were killed in the past if you weren't Catholic,' I said. Papa nodded. Bald, a grey moustache, glasses.

Ethan scratched the back of his head. 'Could evangelism be considered as one? And ... well, there is a lot of hatred for a few religions now. Especially Islam. That hatred can cause states to make policies to suppress them.'

'Yes,' said Dad.

'The oppressor is capable of being oppressed,' said Mike.

'What determines the oppressor, is their position of power in society.'