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I never understood people being racist, to be honest.

I didn't really know why one colour of people — simply by pigment and not by something more tangible, or justifiable — would raise furor or prejudices in people of a different complexion.

Blacks: Gangbangers. Whites: Oppressors. Asians: Bad drivers but good at math and not much else. Jews: Cheap. Latinos: Aliens. Natives: Welfare frauds and sniffers.

I'm sure there's others in this word association, but the point is made. Everyone, down deep, has their ugly prejudices that only some allow to show.

I dated an African-American girl once. Her father, with some Irish lineage, had no problem with me. Her mother, and some of that side of the family, never really cozied up to the fact she was dating a white Canadian. I didn't get it. Surely I didn't live through the riots of the 60s in a black man's body, but nor did I live through those same riots in the body of a white man. Nor did I give aid to lynchers, church bombers or backwoods rednecks who didn't want to sip from the same fountain as their black bretheren. Never mind that my knowledge of black history is arguably considerably more advanced than most people — white or black — that you could ask, the fact was I wouldn't be good enough because my skin wasn't the right shade.

So I never got it. But I'm starting to.

I will say to the death there isn't a racist bone in my body, but maybe I'd be lying. In fact, if anyone wants to sleep at night with that thought in their head, they might be lying to themselves too.

Fact is, since living in the City of Brandon for two-plus years, I have been accosted numerous times, a victim of attempted assaults and a victim of a minor assault after living, essentially, nearly three decades in a city that everyone around here refers to with the 'gangland' title.

I'd be a fool to not have noticed that of the countless petty verbal fights I've been in, the many insignificant pushings and shovings and finally, Tuesday night, the not-so-insignificant shotgun that was placed in the back of my head, a large majority of the actions were carried out by the same race of people.

Last night, at a bar, I had a double-barrelled sawed-off jabbed in the back of my head while the small club was robbed blind by a couple of bumbling morons who made off with essentially petty cash but left an elderly man bruised and shaken and the rest of the patrons stunned.

The only terrifying thing about the whole incident was standing in a place where I could see them walk in and approach me the entire time. I saw the masks cloaking their faces, I saw them enter the premisis backwards and I saw them turn to me as they grabbed for their pockets. I was ready for a knife. A knife I felt I could deal with and was ready to. A shotgun was different.

Thus, I'm left sitting and watching it all take place. I took off my grandfather's ring — my most cherished possession — and tucked it in my pocket. And afterwards I'm cursing myself for not doing something anything to a little puke who, only because he had access to a firearm, left a group of grown adults hostage for a few miserable minutes. Any other circumstance, any other time, and this five-foot-nothing wouldn't have been able to punch his way out of a wet paper bag ... with scissors in his hand.

Instead, we're all left in paralysis as victims for those moments and, for the ones following, I'm left raging against anyone I even think might be those guys. And I'm struggling to convince myself that not every one of that colour in this city would do the same thing. Deep down I know it. But deeper down I guess I don't, because it hasn't kept me from looking over my shoulder a little bit more.

And I hate it.

So I don't know whether I loathe Brandon more, or the people that inhabit it. Whether I'm sick of the hillbilly ways of a still-country town trying to be city, or the line of demarcation between the folks that use the word nigger or indian like it's a conjunction, or the lowlifes that walk around like it's their world and we're just happy to live in it.

But lately I've started to know why people feel those racist leanings. Don't think I don't still detest it. I'm just fighting it every minute to not start thinking the same way and change what I've always believed.

For having all those feelings, I still don't know who I hate the most: The people, this god-forsaken city or myself.

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In light of the mood of the latest post, let's just let one of Brooklyn's finest, Mos Def, leave us with lyric of the day. A brilliant inspection of ghetto life that transcends more than just Flatbush and Bed-Stuy.

Lyric of the Day:
Yo, check it one for Charlie Hustle, two for Steady Rock
Three for the fourth comin live, future shock
It's five dimensions, six senses
Seven firmaments of heaven to hell, 8 Million Stories to tell
Nine planets faithfully keep in orbit
with the probable tenth, the universe expands length
The body of my text posess extra strength
Power-liftin powerless up, out of this, towerin inferno
My ink so hot it burn through the journal
I'm blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle
Hip-Hop past all your tall social hurdles
like the nationwide projects, prison-industry complex
Broken glass wall better keep your alarm set
Streets too loud to ever hear freedom ring
Say evacuate your sleep, it's dangerous to dream
but you chain cats get they CHA-POW, who dead now
Killin fields need blood to graze the cash cow
It's a number game, but shit don't add up somehow
Like I got, 16 to 32 bars to rock it
but only 15 per cent of profits, ever see my pockets like
Sixty-nine billion in the last 20 years
spent on national defense but folks still live in fear like
nearly half of America's largest cities is one-quarter black
That's why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack
Sixteen ounces to a pound, 20 more to a key
A five minute sentence hearing and you no longer free
Forty per cent of Americans own a cell phone
so they can hear, everything that you say when you ain't home
I guess, Michael Jackson was right, "You Are Not Alone"
Rock your hardhat black cause you in the Terrordome
full of hard niggaz, large niggaz, dice tumblers
Young teens and prison greens facin life numbers
Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients
Young bloods can't spell but they could rock you in PlayStation
This new math is whippin mother******s ass
You wanna know how to rhyme you better learn how to add
It's mathematics.
Mos Def, Mathematics from his first solo album of the same name.