Professor Stephen Vasciannie
“Toughie” (not his real nickname) was quite popular among the teenaged young men in the community that accommodates both the meadow and the brook. He would sometimes hang out in the vicinity of the big school. One day in 1969, Toughie saw me wearing a gold-looking ring as I walked home from primary school.
“Gimme da ring deh, youth”, Toughie said, putting his hand in his back pocket, as if reaching for an offensive item.
I took up my 9 year old self and ran away.
About two years later, my 10 year old cousin and I went, as a special treat, to “Saturday morning matinee” at a leading cinema where the roads cross. We were enjoying ourselves when a young man sat beside me and demanded money with menaces. He put something that felt metallic to my side, saying that it was a ratchet knife. Though completely frightened, I denied fairly loudly that I had any money. In truth, I had only bus fare home. The young man delivered some choice bad words and stormed off. I avoided the big cinema for a year or so.
As Lower Sixth Formers at KC in 1976, some of us went to a special library downtown to do research in History. As we walked up East Street, a man – about 22? – called one of our group, Manny, and roughly tore off Manny’s Timex watch, just so – in plain view. All members of our group, including Manny, opted to quickly walk on by.
In my adult years, I worked among New York lawyers. An office colleague, walking home in Manhattan, was mugged. He fought back, lost some items, and had unwanted aches and pains for weeks. My office colleague was apparently from a certain race; I noticed that, in retelling the episode in my presence, he never mentioned the race of his attacker.
Then there was a notable post-slavery episode from my Second Form year at KC. I went to a large department store to buy a Hardy Boy novel, “The House on the Cliff”. The store called itself a “fair”. I heard screams, weeping and wailing, in the area behind the cashiers. A young woman was being whipped publicly and mercilessly by a tough-looking, strong man. She had reportedly tried to steal a brassiere. I stood in shock, an eyewitness to brutality.
Sociology has not really enhanced my understanding of these episodes.