My cell rings late into the night while watching some action film. No one I know calls at that time of the night. I don’t know the number calling. Having expected too much drunken and outright dumb callers at that time of the night I’ve made it a sort of policy not to answer late night calls unless I know who the caller was. This time for no reason at all I answered. It was an action I was to regret later.
“Hello!”
“Hello!” It was the loudest and angriest ‘Hello’ you could ever hear. He sounded like someone deep into his prime. My ‘early warning system’ alerted me the following seconds and minutes were not going to be nice. They weren’t. Without even trying to confirm who was on this end he dives into a string of obscenities and the vilest words in the dictionary. He added that no one was going to fool him and he was going to give me my due. He went on ranting nonstop and I kept my cool. Really, I must have given myself the thumbs up for not trying to shout back; maybe luckily I wasn’t well versed with such responses. Then he paused, may be to replenish his arsenal of obscenities, and I had my chance;
”Sir, I think you’ve the wrong number!”
“What wrong number! Aren’t you so and so?”
“No, I am not.” The line goes dead. A few seconds later he calls again. This time I outpaced him;
“Sir, you are calling the wrong number.”
Maintaining that angry tone of his, he again asked if I was so and so. I said I was not. The line goes dead again. At last now I can turn my attention to all the Armageddon on the TV screen.
About two minutes later he calls again,
“Isn’t this number….?” At least he got the number right. I said it was, that it was my number, and that there was no one by the name he mentioned.
“Aha! So you guys are playing games. How much did he pay you?” On the screen Steven Segal was punching and kicking an entire town and on the phone this stranger was practically throwing his kicks and punches at me! This isn’t at all fair! He then said something that really spoilt my night. He said that I sounded like I was from the same ethnic group like the guy and…. That did it for me. I cut him in mid-sentence and put my cell in flight mode. Ethnic what!
Look, I’m really sorry to say it; but this ethnicity thing is costing many their human genes. Every time there is something they pull the ethnic card. And that these things persisted more on those who claim to be learned and polished at the edges; those who claim that they were the masters who deserved some King Solomon status works
on your nerves.
A guy I know was advised to keep away from his best friend of decades because the guy was in some dispute with powerful guys from such and such ethnic group. So what! He was sure his best friend was capable of fighting his own fight and what has this got to do with him! “They know you are his friend and might come after you.”
They were talking about a friend who was by side in very trying times and who bailed him out of financial and other problems over and again. And truth be told, he would be willing to comply if his friend asked him for any sort of favor, at the risk of putting his wellbeing in danger. That was how close they were. He tells them that no matter what happened he will not abandon his friend. They warned him he will be sorry and things stand at that. It is a pity that at a time when we all needed to join forces to prevent from going all the way down the tube by the onslaught of the global pandemic there are those who pull the ethnic card for almost everything! Even those you expect to be more rational, more reasonable act in the most disdainful manner.
‘What, oh what’ would it take to make such souls come back to their senses!
The Ethiopian Herald April 3/2020
