Being brought up in East London I saw alot of limitations placed on people including myself. People in authority did not have respect for us.
I lived on a street which was one of the main walking routes to my secondary school, a school placed under special measures, with a bad rep for violence and disruption.
Almost every day I lived in fear but I also had to be tough.
I remember having a letter box that didn't have any guard so people could just look straight into the house I lived in.
Sometimes I have nightmares about the kitchen which faced the street and people could just walk right up to my window or door, people from my school, people who I did not want looking for me.
Alot of people used to put things through other peoples letter boxes like fireworks or even poos in bags.
I would pray it wouldn't happen to me.
I remember also getting in big trouble with my mum when any guys knocked on my door....
But I never wanted to or did anything with these guys, I didn't even want them to knock for me, not even my friends.
in fact one of them was my gay friend.
But my mum thought she had it all figured out.
Exactly like everyone else.
There was a man who lived on our street, some doors down who was nicked named the crazy man. He had lots of childlike art of flowers and hearts on his door and windows, he also used to collect the trash from everyone's house and sort through it.
I remember him looking kind of dirty and a bit odd but he seemed friendly, he would offer us sweets to be honest I can't remember if I took them from him but he wasn't a bad guy, he wasn't that guy who offers you sweets and you run.
But his constant trash collecting caused a bigger problem. He would dump all the stuff he didn't want into the hedges and bushes of the main road leading to the estate.
Some of that trash was ours and it had my mothers name on the letters and statements.
One day an official knocked on our door and asked to speak to my parents since I was clearly under age. However I remember feeling totally different to my age, feeling I had to take on more responsibility, since my mum had severe depression and other mental health issues she still battles with today. She often spent all day in bed. Thats where she was when this guy knocked on the door, trust me I checked his badge and everything, I was definately suspicious because of the environment I was brought up in. Not only were there crazy trash men around but drug addicts and all sorts of things going on.
I can't remember exactly how it all played out because we are going back 25 years or more now, however what happened next was my mum appeared and either I was already shouting at this guy or just trying to defend my mum since the official from the council was accusing us of fly tipping and threatening to take us to court and fine us thousands of pounds since he had the evidence.
By this point I knew we were pretty poor, my parents had split up, my mum was receiving maintance and there was barely any food in the fridge. I had no pocked money and I was getting free school meals, I remember the meals being so disgusting, a conjeiled grey 'burger' cold chips and no salad in sight. After eating the same shit every day for weeks on end, I just couldn't stomach it anymore, I stopped eating but to fill my stomach I would have to beg for 10p from any by stander to buy space invaders crisps to eat for lunch.
So for some suited and booted council guy to roll up to our door, threaten us and think he knew what he was talking about because he had so called evidence sent me insane.
I was angry and I was telling him to go and talk to the mad man down the road, the mad man who was sitting in a free housing association house (ironically) and stealing the trash from everyone and dumping it into the bushes, and even as a child I was disgusted by the trash piles which made me even angrier that our family were accused.
As you can imagine that taught me a huge lesson, to destroy all kyc, I make sure everything I throw out with my name on it is ripped into tiny shreds or blocked out.
And also I guess I'm very aware that evidence doesn't always mean truth.
Our reality is so complex and we as humans are still only a small aspect of all of this. We are limited in so many ways yet we believe with confidence we know what we are doing, its so much easier for us to catogrize and pigeon whole things into what we think is correct. However the more experiences I face in my life that are tough, I always am confronted with this black and white thinking mentality and Im reminded and humbled that despite the dualistic fairy tale we have fabricated to make understanding our reality easier that life is certainly not that simple, the spectrum is massive, and we can never know what its like to walk in another persons shoes.
Imagine if the council official came to our door with another approach instead assuming because he had the evidence he was right, he opened his mind to a multitude of possibilitues and listened to our side and came without condemning or pre judgement the scenario would of been completely different.
But even some so called enlightened people aren't even that open, it takes years of work of deprogramming, and even when we think we've mastered it, we can still be tested again and again.
I wonder what your thoughts on this are?