English, BBC, Deep, Meaningful, Educational
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EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
British (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
My name is Amy, I'm from West London. I've been let down singled out, I've been oppressed and at 13 I was stopped and searched by the police, I live with my mom and my four sisters, my family was good at celebrating like eat because I'm muslim, so we don't really celebrate christmas you've really got to eat if it's not like a barbecue would be like a dinner or like house gathering something like you have to do something. I got in trouble in primary school with this kid, He bit me, he didn't get punished as he should have and my mom told me that I'm always gonna have to work harder than him and if something happens to me it's not gonna be the same type of reaction that people are going to give. I'm not equal with other people. I was walking home from school, my head is down and got my earphones and you know, I'm just minding my business. The policeman comes out and he's basically like, you know, where have I come from? I told him I came from high school, He asked me where I lived, I pointed to my house, he um asked me like, you know if I have anything sharp on me anything suspicious and then I said no. He asked me how old I am. I told him I'm 13 and then he just started reading me like I have the right to search you under this act or whatever. I took my bag off, emptied out my pockets and then he proceeded to search me like, you know when you go on a roller coaster and your heart drops, it was a bit like that, you know, they're searching your arms in between your legs and then like where your rib cages and then obviously because I'm a girl, they kind of search your bra a bit, it's just so humiliating an open public, not like in the corner and like literally on the pathway to my house after the search there was no like apology literally turned around, went back in his car and just drove off. It was only a couple of years after that when I realized how violated I was. They teach you the good touch and bad touch. That was not a good touch. It didn't feel right. I'm growing up to believe the police are good, they're here to serve and help me keep me safe. So whatever comes out of your mouth I have to deem it to be true. It just created a whole trust issue with me. Anyways. So he was in um D t I never liked this teacher, he always loved to press people's buttons. You know we're talking we're talking and then he's like listen to me so obviously you know we're not really listening, we're ignoring him and he said we're a pack of animals at first. That's what he said. Obviously I retaliated back and I said so if we're a pack of animals then what are you? And then he said I'm mr so and so and you're a monkey. I was like you can't call me that, I will have you for that. He said who's gonna believe you? The we used to call it patrol. He came and I explained to him that teacher in there, he just called me a monkey and he was like well you know you need to go here and if you want to write a report about it then you can do that. I just told you that your colleague called me a monkey, that's your job to want the best for me. He is not the best for me or anyone else in there. And then he's just pinpointing the things that are wrong with me. Like, oh, you know, you've got your trainers on or you have your phone out and I'm thinking like take the phone, take the trainers, are you going to do something about him? Wow. Like you guys just believe I don't exist in it until I do something towards you. But when you do something towards me it's like I'm not even on your radar, it's like I'm not even here. If I was ever in trouble, I can't come to this school, I can't I can't ask for help from here. I can't ask for help for the police. What do I do? The mental health impact affected me dearly because it's like nothing is fair. So he kind of just put the self destruct button on the wall and then I just, every day I was just tempted to press it. It caused me to want to be seen more in a negative light that people put me in every time you get angry or you retaliate or when you already think I'm an animal anyway, so I might as well give you what you want, give teachers how I thought that me being badly behaved and acting out, it was showing them who's boss. I started spiraling, hanging around with the wrong people, doing the wrong things And I'm gonna blame that on an encounter that I had with a police officer at 13 for the rest of my life. That's gonna be my excuse. After I reached my lowest point, I just said, this behavior is only detrimental to me. I'm the only one that's gonna lose. And then the only way was up.