Racist bullies taught me how not to treat people

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I had loads of friends at school and Id hang around with them Michael, Derrick, Kadir and a couple of mixed-race friends and we would take on the racists together.

They particularly picked on this guy Iqbal. He wore these NHS glasses and they delighted in breaking them over and over again, so he had dozens of pieces of tape on each side and loads of glue splurged on top of the bridge. One time I was going down the corridor and he was holding his glasses in his hands and crying fit to bust. I can’t fix them, he was sobbing, three of them had stamped on them, he said.

I had a look. His glasses were truly knackered, theyd done a proper job on them this time. And that triggered it for me. Why are you picking on him, he’s a brainy kid, let him have a chance to learn something so he can get out of the slums. But now you guys have smashed up his glasses so he can’t read Im not having it. Lets see how you like it if I pick on you. Right, you black so-and-so, they responded, and then we got into a fight.

Someone even recorded one of the guys being so racist it was unbelievable. We asked why he said all that stuff: Whats wrong with ya? He denied it at first, but wed recorded him and played him the tape and he laughed in our faces. Cue more fighting. But what we didnt know was that he was the assistant heads nephew, who summoned me to his office and said: Blades, theres no point in coming back to school. Just come back to take your exams.

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