Darlington. I don’t know where to start – the cheeky little ***** on their BMX’s or the constant abuse non-straight-haired people receive on a day to day basis. Darlington isn’t a hell-hole, or bad, it’s just Darlington. Since moving from the South when I was a baby, growing up in Darlington was fairly normal, as I was inept to the abuse I received in my teens, but as a child, I felt comfortable. Having thick, afro textured hair in a sea full of white people is not the best combination – oh no, it’s NOT the best thing to wear your afro out in public, as a cheeky little **** from around the corner in their juicy couture tracksuit, will yell ‘Oi! Toiletbrush-ed! HAHA’ or ‘AFRO-CIRCUS, AFRO-CIRCUS…’, and also sippin their coca cola and pieing down a pot noodle just to look hard.
If these people knew what being a black person in Darlington was like, they’d keep their mouths shut. ‘Would you ever straighten your hair?’ is a thing I used to get constantly before I moved to Ealing, West London, which is my current residence at this time, and it pissed me off. It struck me as if they’d never seen a black individual like myself before, which angered me even more, till I got to the point when I’d have random strangers coming up to me and sticking their hands in my hair. ‘WTF are you doing?’ is a thing I would say and I’d be saying afterwards not to touch my hair, and they’d be like ‘you choose to grow it like that!’ and they’d tell me to chill. Well, you fat-******* northerner, you choose to touch it. It’s not in human nature to touch or sniff something new to you. I mean, u wouldn’t touch an ebola patient or someone with penis warts because you don’t make frequent physical contact with them, as you might contract the infection or virus, so before you make that argument, consider what other new things there’d be to you which you’d never touch.
My second rant is the racist children being brought up in mono-cultured homes with their deadbeat dads and their ‘leave-me-alone-coz-im-watching-location-location-location’ mums who don’t teach their children to respect other cultures. This refers back to my last point about me making a cultural statement about my afro kinky hair (which I don’t need to straighten or cut off) which kids are brought up to think straight hair is ‘good hair’. Those kids, although because of the time and they’re probably sleeping because it’s 12 at night, although, due to Darlington’s standards, they’re probably out being racist and drinking whiskey (which leads on to my third and final point), are probably gonna also grow up thinking that Darlington is the best. Sweetie… that’s being parochial. A person being parochial refers to expressing greatness about their town to other towns and favouring that town they were brought up to believe is better above the other town they aren’t used to. In secondary school, the big, master-afro days, I would write documents, dreaming of leaving Darlington, and a pot-noodled breath kid would be standing over me, reading as I went along and pointing out the best things about Darlington to me. Sugar… WAKE UP! Darlington is a small town in the North East of England where nothing happens and you choose to favour it over London, Manchester or Birmingham? Fam, u crazy!
My third and final point is the, what I hate saying the word, *****. In my school, the ***** were seen as the toughties and the big bwoys who think they own the place because they won a game of football for the first time in their sad, damned lives. NOTE* Also, If you are a Darlington lover reading this, don’t feel outraged, because every opinion matters. Getting back to the point, I’d see all of the bouffant-style girls saying ‘I’s got a afro’ and it’d be favoured more than my hair. I’d see the boys being told ‘ur gonna be a dad’ by their girlfriends’ deadbeat dad who wouldn’t support their children. I can’t really say anymore.
ADVICE TIME
- If you are Black and you like to have an afro, don’t move to Darlington. I don’t mean there’s no afro salons, which there is, but you will be judged.
- Notice in the title ‘there’s no going back’, I was referring to the cost of housing. If you’re fresh in the north from London, then u will probably be able to buy 2 4 bed houses, but the selling of the 2 4 bed houses will be the equivalent of a 2-3 bed flat in Enfield, where I was born. I remember, when I was 5, a house in Edmonton (in the heart of Enfield, or something like that) going for £200,000, and when I was 14, a house in Firth Moor going for £40,000. Money is a lot, everywhere, but a studio in Cockerton (a decent Darlington Area) is like chips in London
- Read this again if ur unsure of my concerns for the Black Community.
- If you are a parochial racist, then read these words carefully and consider it from the other side.
- If you love Darlington, well, then you shouldn’t have read this then – YOUR BAD!
I will get back to u soon and I will enjoy my London Life
