Recently, I saw a video of Dennis Quaid
losing his patience whilst on set and verbally abusing all those in his line of
fire. I laughed uncontrollably whilst holding a shocked face, and after having
watched it the second time around, I came to the realization of something.
My entire life, I have always been the
quiet one. I have been Peter Pan’s shadow, not Peter Pan himself. I never took
risks. I sat there content in watching people take risks for me, people shaping
my pathway through life. And none of it mattered so long as I was out of
everyone’s way, so long as I remained in my shell, my comfort zone.
This was the way until I started attending
university. I never saw myself as a future academic. I always thought that I
would fall into some subliminal career, like video game design, wherein the
only place I exist would be in the credits, the shadows again. Either that or
tattooing, also the shadows, because all I would do is draw on people watch
from afar as others fell in awe on that person’s skin, far from me, with only a
name to represent me, and if I were lucky, a business car. But university
changed that.
University gave me a voice. It powered my
anger. It fueled me. Whenever something unprofessional would happen, I found myself
commenting on it not just through text, which is the way I lived my life
earlier because of my obsession with networking, but through voice. I was a
decent public speaker in my youth, but entering the academic world gave my
public speaking a powerful surge. Something inside of me came to life and cast
me out of the shadows. It cast me into vulnerability, into the spotlight, a
place that I had feared my entire life prior to entering this academic space,
and since then there has been no going back.
I have been vocalizing all that irritates
me. I have been standing up to myself, seeking justice where it is due. One
particular instance is when one of my aunties had sought out to avenge my
sister on her choice of preferring a spouse from another race. Upon other
devastating phrases, she screamed “love isn’t about loving someone, it is about
making a child that looks like you so that they won’t be bullied. You have to
think of what your children will look like before you marry!” My blood boiled.
I could no longer contain myself. “how,” I retorted, after my father stuck up
for her, “can any of you sit here and listen to this? How do you all expect me
to sit here with you after I attend classes which preach about diversity? How
am I meant to grow as an educator and love others when all you do is tell me to
hate everyone?” It was pathetic. Everyone had let me down at that moment,
particularly my younger cousins who felt the same way that I did but dared not
speak about it.
What was important was that I had a voice.
I grew out of their expectations, I grew out of their nonsense and developed my
own self, developed a character that would take a stand when they feel
something is wrong, a character that would give voice to the voiceless. Had I
not spoken at that moment in time, I would have sat there appearing to fall
into agreement with the ridiculous nonsense that my aunt had released, and the
hopes of my sister or myself or anyone in that room alike would have fallen
into an abyss of hatred that my aunt was attempting to cast it into. By
standing up for myself and for the right of all human beings at that moment, I
had put a plug into that abyss, ensuring that nobody, while I was around, would
fall into that again.
In Dennis Quaid’s rant, he screams “I am
doing my job, here. I am a pro. This is the most unprofessional set I have ever
been on. […] This is garbage!” I came to the realization, upon hearing that,
that fighting for what you believe in is the only way to survive. He could have
continued sitting where he is on the set. He could have continued to fall
victim to the unprofessionalism that he was faced with, but after having been
in a certain professional space, he would not settle for less, and right he is
for not doing that.
He has grown. Not physically, but mentally.
His inner horizons had been stretched. He has been through things that he
probably had not anticipated, and then he is thrown into a situation where
regression was imminent. That scenario relates to the scenario I went through,
when my aunt had her racist rumble. I have been growing in all these six years
in an academic environment, what good would I do myself if I had left myself in
a place where the only choice I had was to regress and comply? None.
Be the Dennis Quaid in your life. Embody
that change. Do not let anything tie you down. Once you are filled with the helium
of growth, let go, and fly. Only come down to inform others, and then fly off
with them as well. Growth is a splendid thing, and once you feed on it,
ignorance becomes easier to spot, and much easier to evade.
