Jacob Prunés

Pahomov

English 2- systems

9/21/18

I had just left the youth program and was waiting for my parents to pick up my older sister and I. We were outside trying to find our parents but couldn't see the car because it was extremely dark. We decided that they must be down the alley around the corner because we couldn’t find them.

When we went around the corner and was walking, we saw a very bright light. My sister and I think it’s a car light so we jogged back to the house we were staying in because the alleyway is very narrow. I noticed that it was only one light instead of the usual two, but it didn’t think anything of it. While we waited for the car to pass we realized it isn’t a car but a bike with an extremely bright headlight. The man on the bike was going slow and then he stopped in front of us.

“What are you guys doing here?”, he asks

We weren’t really sure what he meant because it’s such a strange question to ask.

“We are just coming back from a youth group.” my sister says.

“Show me, prove it. Go knock on their door.” the man says.

That’s when I finally realize that he doesn’t trust or believe us.

“Why were you guys running away?” he asked

“I thought you were a car, your light is very bright.” I said, now getting angry that this man stopped us because we were “running.”

He then made a noise that says, “yeah right!” and biked away.

My sister and I just stood there angry and annoyed. It then goes through my head that this man was racially profiling us because we were in Germantown, a mostly white neighborhood. We hadn’t done anything wrong, but the way he was talking about us made it seem like we did. I don’t like to get involved in situations so I just call my parents to find out where they are.

We finally find their car and we climb in.

“How was it? Did you have a good time?” My mom asked.

“Well, it was good until now.”, my sister says, starting to tear up.

My parents ask what's wrong. She then explains the whole story to them, about how we were racially profiled. Now, my mom is not shy or calm in these situations, especially when it comes to her kids. She instantly hops out the car, slamming the door behind her, and goes up to the man, who turns out to be the neighbor of the house we were in. We can’t really hear what’s going on and we couldn’t see very well because it was still dark but when my mom comes back she explains what happened.

When she confronted him she tells him what he did. He obviously didn’t think he did anything wrong and doesn’t really care what my mom was saying.

After she stops talking the man said, “Well, why were they running.”

So my mom explains about the flashlight on his bike.

“What flashlight?” He asked, which is ridiculous because his flashlight was almost brighter than the sun.

“That one!” She exclaims, pointing to the light on his bike. “My kids felt very uncomfortable.”

“I did too,” he said, pretending that he was the victim.

Seeing that he doesn’t care or really know what he did, my mom heads back to the car. When she tells me what happened, I get very upset about the bull**** I just heard. Eventually, we drive away after we talk to the family that we were with.

This was the first time I have ever seen blatant racism and racial profiling, first hand. I knew that people thought that way but I couldn’t comprehend that it could happen to me too. This moment really changed how I see the world. This moment shouldn’t happen to anyone. This needs to stop. I just hope one day I can walk through an alleyway with not a worry in my mind.

“Ag-ner”

“A-g-ner”

“Anyae”

 “Onya”

It’s what they all said with an awkward expression. My answer was always the same.

“It’s Aigner - “On-ya”  

As long as I can remember I hated my name, especially when it came to the outside world. It would make me mad, because they had no problem pronouncing other people’s name but when they started to stutter I knew for a fact that they got to my name. Every so often I have flashbacks to when the teacher would say

“Agner”

and I would run out of the classroom crying my eyes out, as I heard the echoes of my class’s laughter.

“Why did she give me this name”,

is what I would constantly repeat in my head “Out of all names and I get stuck with this dreadful name.”.

The year of 2012 is when I started to dance. My hip-hop teacher, Mr. Balou had the hardest time pronouncing my name. It was so difficult for him to pronounce that it got to a point that he was purposely mispronouncing my name, insteading of getting to learn it. Hearing the name he gave me made me feel like I myself was not human, didn’t have no respect for me and I belonged somewhere strangely unusual. It made me wonder how my other teacher got the jist of it but he just shut downed and called me whatever was easier for him. My mom pulled me out of dance, not because of the name thing but...to be honest I don’t even know why she did such a thing. Next thing you know, I was playing tennis. For some reason I had a high hope of my coaches pronouncing my name right but I should’ve known that no matter where I go there will always be a mis-pronunciation. For the whole year I was there not once did they get it right. Based on the spelling of my name the word Ag-ner would just slip out there mouth. At time I use to think they would mess it up on purpose cause when they said it they will laugh it off. This ignorance made me mad, so I went up to her one morning and told her I quit. I never thought she would say “Ok, let me know if see other things that interest you.”.

When I would accurately pronounce my name, I would sometime say it’s french. Some people would ask numerous questions about my name. Hearing these questions would make me laugh or it would be so preposterous.

“Are you french?”

“Say something in French?”

“Were you born in France?”

“Do you have French in your family background?”

Still to this day I am ask such ridiculous questions about being French. Every so often when I explain my name to people they are amazed that the letters are silent and realize that they are adding more pressure than needed.

Seventh grade year, I remember that year because that was a year where we had a ton of substitute teachers. As soon as the bell rung at 12:15 me and my classmates rushed down to the computer lab, for the cool refreshing air. Of course, she had to do role call but I had gotten over the fact that my name was quite difficult to pronounce based on its spelling. After the words “Khairiyyah Tumaini” fled her mouth I just knew what was coming. For the first time, throughout all the substitute teachers I had she got it right, with no stuttering nor hesitation. Instead of saying

¨Present¨, I replied with a

“Thank you”.

She looked at my puzzle with her face saying

“Why so she say thank you?”,

“Everybody always messes it up”, my friend replies. For some reason hearing the pronunciation “On-ya” made me realize that I can't make assumptions and judge people's interpretation.

Long story short having this name makes me feel a lot of things, majority of the time feeling peculiar. At times I think to myself that I shouldn’t let this ruin myself.

“Today we're going to be practicing taking a disc from one place to another place he asked us what is that.”

My teamś coach, Kobe, told us that without teamwork there's no team.”

After he said that I felt like we wanted to be a team but we didn't know how to be a team. We were counting on Kobe to teach us how to work as a team.

We split the teams up into two offense versus defense, Kobe threw the ¨discs in the middle and we started playing.¨ Alex cut left and I filled a diss to Alex then he threw it to Phoenix. We were halfway down the field then Kobe said, ¨throw it down the field Amadou then I ran as fast as I could and I felt the green and black turf in between my cleats I felt the breeze go past me as I caught the disc in the air,¨

“Let's try it with no teamwork, and see how that works,” Kobe said.

Then we started it again started with the disc and all Kobe said, “Will someone run all the way down the field .” Then we tried it with teamwork again, so I started with the disc again then I threw it at Phoenix and he threw it back to me. The Ethan had the disc.

Kobe said, ¨Sit down and tell me what were the pros and cons of the practice today.”

Phoenix replied with, “The pros were that we worked as a team and communicated with each other.”

The cons were, we weren’t working together as a team and our communication was not organized.

I finally understood what Kobe was trying to say he was trying to say that if we don't put our head together and work as a team we will never win a game.  when he told us to Try it without teamwork it was an example of how we would play if we don't work together Show us that we have to work together.

Two weeks ago, after school, at 44th and Haverford I had soccer practice. The coach told us we have a game tomorrow and we need to practice controlling the ball, passing it to our teammates,  and getting open. he advised us to gather into small groups where we would pass the ball. There was one defender in each of the group where they were supposed to block the ball, with this drill we improved in our communication skills as a team. There were a couple times we lost the ball, the coach stopped us after five minutes asking why did you lose the ball.

Ash replied “Because we weren't talking to each other and using all the space we have as a team,” Coach made us try it again.

I passed the ball to Ash and then he passes it back and we kept this up for about 5 minutes without the defender getting. The coach pointed out the difference after we played and he congratulated me, making me happy.

I learned that without working as a team and communication we will never learn to keep the ball in our possession. we have to talk because if someone behind Ash trying to get the ball I can tell Ash to pass the ball and as a team, we will learn to work together.

Systems. That’s the big word this year, the one nobody seems to stop talking about. In class after class, we’re asked to speak about what systems affect us, which systems are visible and which are not, and what a system is. To define a system, a lot of my classmates turned to the examples of the prison system or the credit system. All these things that make people generally unhappy. I can’t speak for the world, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that as people we don’t like feeling unhappy. We like positive systems that distract us from the negative ones and just make us feel good. For me that’s the regional rail train system.

The regional rail is just some trains. That’s really it. You get on and you get off some time later, surprisingly far from your initial location for how much you paid. I’m less interested with how it gets you where you’re going, and more concerned with the experience. I’m not sure what exactly about it I love but there’s just something meditative and calming about it. As you leave the city, you can see the urban area slowly fade and become more green; turning into a series of small towns and eventually farms and rural areas. To think that people take this ride 360,000 times each day is insane to me.  For me, it’s a calming and infrequent experience but for others, it’s their boring or stressful daily routine.

The really interesting thing with this example, though, is that it can be applied as a metaphor to any number of systems.  When one person sees a just means of protecting citizens from criminals, another sees as a flawed institution that harms minorities and prevents past felons from living a comfortable life. How a system affects the individual directly correlates to how that system is perceived. When I think of systems I think of the regional rail because it positively affects me in a way different than it affects many others. Some people like it because it gets them to work in the morning, (more often than not people hate it because it gets them to work in the morning), some people hate it because the trains usually aren’t the most punctual or clean. The majority of people, though, just don’t think about it.

When was the last time you sat down and thought to yourself, “How does the regional rail make me feel?” It’s a strange question, no doubt, but it’s also one that not many people have an immediate full answer to. The thing about SEPTA, and many other systems actually, is that they’re either not present in someone’s life at all, or all too present and the individual is just normalized to the experience. This happens a lot with systems - good or bad - all the time. Of course we don’t notice this because, well, that’s the point. Since 1976 the US government has executed 1,427 people for a criminal offense and we’re just cool with that? I mean, of course we’re not, but it’s become normalized to a point where we don’t even realize it’s scale. This example is especially true in states like Texas, where more than a third of these executions have occured.

But we don’t think about that on the regional rail because the regional rail is for peace of mind and enjoying nature go by. The regional rail is for getting your ticket after you’ve gotten on the train so you get one of the big tickets that they punch a bunch of holes in. It’s like an unintentional anti-system system. It’s this 403 mile web of steel tracks and cars going roughly 100 miles per hour, all communicating with each other over invisible waves in the air and I sit myself down and don’t exist for a few hours. It’s cathartic.

It’s 5:30 am and it took us about an hour to get there, we were due to board at 8 o’clock. There were seven of us and only two bathrooms. Everyone had to be dressed and ready to eat in a hour and thirty minutes. I can’t remember the last time I got up so early, but that was this morning’s issue. In 2 hours flat I’ve conquered up another issue.

People. So many people. How do you even control such an establishment? People with suitcases and backpacks, all in line waiting for one thing.

Security Checks.

I don’t know why I got so nervous, I didn’t have anything to hide, not anything that might trigger the alarms. I took off my hoodie just in case. I put my side bag and backpack in the bin and waited for my turn.

“Next,” said security.

I held my arms up above my head and spread my legs like the picture showed. Patiently waiting to hear the “clear”. But, I didn’t and my heart started racing. Maybe the machine is broken,  maybe I didn’t have my feet in the right position.

“Step out and then come back in,” the women said.

I stepped inside and mimicked the picture a second time, making sure that I did it exactly. I watched as everyone around me went through the metal detectors. I kept hearing the “clear” over and over again. Patiently waiting for the women to give me my clear.  Instead, I was told to come out and stand on the silhouettes of red feet as the women asked my age and where my guardian was.

“Since she’s under 18, I have to ask your permission to pat her down,” said security.

A pat down? Pat down what? How much could you hide in a T-shirt and tights? The lady explained that my shirt set off the system. I wore an embroidered grey shirt that had the word “Aero” spelled in jewels and glitter. They weren’t even the type of jewels that you could pick off the shirt. I guess the machine had other plans. I never got patted down before and I’ve only seen it happen in the movies. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but by the time the woman was done, I went from being nervous to being irritated. It was almost as if I thought she was going to find something. And of course when she didn’t I felt like the whole process was a waste of everyone's time. My family and I could have already been to the Florida Gate 34 by now.

However, my relief quickly turned back to nervousness as the women came walking towards me with two brown papers in her hands. She swabbed me. My palms were sweaty, I wish she could take retest me. I was frightened because I didn’t know what they were looking for. I didn’t know what type of things could affect the test. I especially couldn’t wrap my 13 year old mind around what “results” they were going to get from wiping paper on my hands. I didn’t know if they were looking for traces of chemicals or testing something completely different. Even at that age my overthinking got the best of me. I tried to slow my heartbeat, thinking that would change the test. Not realizing that a brown paper swab rubbing across my hands could have no correlation with my heart beat. Then I thought about everything that I have touched in the airport. Thinking about that made it worst. I put myself in this guilty position even though I knew I had nothing to hide.  

I didn’t really understand at the time, but people’s jobs have meaning and value. Even the littlest job has a reason for all of it’s tasks. I think about all the horrible plane attacks that have happened over the years. From suicide bombings to gun attacks. As nerve racking and pointless as I thought the checks were I respect that the women took her job seriously. You can not have a truly secure facility if there are special rules for certain people. No matter how simple something could be protocol was made for a reason.