Lies

Every time a human talks about hate, they lie.

I was shot. Or I was shot at. It really depends on who you are talking to. The bullet grazed the back of my neck. The officer that witnessed the incident from his Miami-Dade Squad car in Kendall kept telling me how lucky I was. “Half an inch to the right and you’re dead. Quarter of an inch and you’re paralyzed”.

I was 15.

Florida was new to me. I had no one I had known for longer than a few months. My cousins were already sewn into their own networks, which had no room for me. Also, I was the ‘strange’ cousin. I worked at bars and clubs (I had a fake ID) but did not care about clubbing. I read books. I wanted to be alone. I disliked Florida.

A year earlier I was set to enter a High School in Manhattan where opportunities to intern at Interview, Marvel and DC, The New York Times, and the news networks were readily available. I wanted to be a writer and journalism seemed a likely way into that world. So I worked and interviewed and networked and finally got an offer from a High School that offered access to the city and a future of my own choosing.

My mother, while I was away for the summer, moved us to Florida though. I was lost. No friends. No plan. No clue.

At Killian I ended up in what can only be described as a class schedule that was unremarkable. One day, for some reason, I ended up talking at length to a Cheerleader. It was an innocent conversation about music that ended with us exchanging phone numbers. I cannot even remember why we did that. She and I were from different planets.

Months later, at a new High School (Sunset) I was approached by a stranger who claimed to know that I’d talked to his girlfriend while at Killian. I said something to the effect of “maybe, I do not remember” (a lie) and walked away only to be grabbed and punched in my chest. I smiled because I was relieved.

High School in Florida was like prison. Until people saw you confronted by someone, they knew nothing about you. My response was effective. I pushed back, with both palms open and all my weight so the boy went backwards and landed on his back. I walked away having made my point. He did not let it go.

As I understand it, because after I was shot at (shot) I confronted him again knowing it was him (I had no one else I suspected as I had no other conflicts-which in Florida doesn’t matter) and he told me why. His father heard about our exchange of blows from a witness’ parent and was amazed that his son wasn’t out hunting me with his gun. So he got up from the dinner table and cleaned his 30 .06 and found some 20 caliber bullets. He drove around with his friends until he saw me and took his shot. Under pressure from his family and friends, he saw me get hit and fall forward.

Some context: 80s South Florida was an interesting place. The Miami River Cops had ignited a gang war that stretched across the city because they spent their time murdering drug dealers and stealing their assets (drugs, money, networks). They made it look as though criminal gangs were the perpetrators so every gang suspected the other. Add in Reagan era racism and the overall national drug war and you had : The Latin Kings, The 5th Street Boys, The Cartel juniors, The Brigada, White Pride and The Aryan Nation (amongst others) and of course the Cartels themselves all at war with each other. Add in the police (Miami Dade Police Department and 30 other departments) and you had one of the most violent cities in America. Miami, in the 1980s, was dubbed the Murder Capital because of the drug wars and the after effects of the Mariel boatlift (aka ‘rapid population shifts’).

White Pride and Aryan Nation were big in South Florida. especially the closer you got to Monroe County. racial tensions in Perrine and further South meant rumors of Klan activity and white militias as far South as The Everglades. I had no friends and no gang affiliations so ‘on my own’ meant exactly that. With a target on my back. So when the altercation occurred I knew there would be a p[rice to pay. The lifetime scar on the back of my neck is a reminder of those circumstances and that time. It is also a reminder of what happened next.

I had to explain the scar and blood and ride home from a policeman to my mother. She listened intently and once the Officer left she looked at me and said “How did you provoke this?”.

She did not care that I was shot. She cared that it was my own fault. She was angry that I was hungry and needed to walk somewhere to get food. She worked 11 to 7 shifts which meant cooking in our apartment was too disruptive for her to get some sleep before work. She was angry because I had not taken her advice and school and did something to draw attention to myself. Yes, she blamed me for being shot at (shot).

Now, fast forward to the many examples of racism and misogyny we have all been confronted with so far in 2026.

While I am devastated and disgusted by Jose Mourinho’s words to Vinicius Jr. and Prestianni’s insults and the generic plague of racism and misogyny that exists in global Soccer, I have heard them before. After being shot (shot at) my mother wanted to know why I had provoked members of a gang. As far as she was concerned, the racist abuse and violence directed at me was my own fault.

I have heard worse. I lived in Birmingham. I have seen worse. I worked in Italy. I left a role at a global brand because they preferred to support a racist bully before admitting the mistake that was hiring him.

She had survived 1960s Birmingham where she and my father were targets of abuse. She often reminded me how she ‘paid them no mind’ so her own mother would not blame her. She had navigated 1970s New York. And survived without incident apparently. I know the abuse I received in Elementary school and Junior High (Middle School) and refused to believe she had never been abused but she insisted she ignored it ‘if it had happened at all’. Which she claimed never happened because she never provoked anyone and I should do the same.

Now, why have I shared this?

I am 56. I have seen the evil in the world propagate exponentially. I have heard racial slurs become everyday language. I have been told that my late father and mother were both, respectively, race traitors. In New York, in 1994, I was told a Board Member’s nephew, who worked in our derivatives team, threatened me by explaining that, at school, he and his friends would have ‘beaten me up’ and left me for dead.

I have seen my mother (I was 6) beaten so badly that she could not move for days. I have seen worse. I have met gang members and mass murderers and listened to them describe the planet we live on as a ‘war’. I have heard my own father impugn my mother because she was ‘not Black enough’ when all he wanted was to be ‘Black’ because he was ashamed of being ‘White’ in Britain. I was 29 when he said that. He claimed he only dated her because she was ‘Black’ and he picked the ‘whitest’ one.

Yes, that is a true story. It is all true. I have lived thinking my father was dead. A lie my mother told me because she was concerned he did not want to have anything to do with me. I have lived thinking my parents did not like me. The truth I watched unfurl as other children and friends and peers asked repeatedly ‘why is your mother so mad at you?’. I have lived having learned their poison is not mine by default. That I can, through treatment, not to be hurt by them. I am not a victim. Even to my abuser when I was 13. I am a witness to the way humans are filled with contempt.

No matter where we turn we are confronted by deep, ugly darkness that confirms over and over again that humans are self destructive and mobilized by fear. Prestianni. POTUS. Mourinho. The as yet un-named Tottenham fans directing hatred to Declan Rice and his partner. The BBC. VPOTUS. BAFTA. Bondi. Musk. No, I have not forgotten the abusive Benfica fans visible during the match.

My list is incomplete. I have energy that belongs elsewhere. And not much of it these days. I had to write these words, though. I cannot watch and not make something clear:

There is something we can do. Unfortunately we are motivated by fear.