Or, at least what you might think.
Judgement hurts in too many ways to count.
I stand in the local thrift market
looking for trinkets and such with my father.
He came here to look for vintage picture frames,
to put up on our pastel coloured walls.
He brought me to be a translator,
of his broken english.
I see the looks some give him,
but I am proud of my father.
And mad at how our society works.
Looking at my father you think,
he probably only knows his own mother tongue,
no education,
bad manners,
had lived in poverty before.
But you are wrong.
An Italian man sits by this booth,
selling picture frames.
I point and tell my father, and he walks over.
"How much for frames?"
I taught him how to say that well enough.
The Italian man says fluently,
"$40 a piece,"
but behind it you can hear a faint Italian accent.
My father hears this and his face lights up,
and he replies in Italian,
"Great, but can you lower it to $30. For me, man?"
The man seemed shocked to see a dark-skinned man,
speaks such fluent Italian.
The man got up with a smile on his face,
and told my father,
"Man, I was born in Italy, but you speak it better than me,"
My dad laughed.
Next time you see,
a strange man,
struggling with his english,
stop to think,
he might be able to speak to you in,
German. Italian. French. And in a tiny bit of Spanish.
And of course, his mother tongue.
He might have learned the culinary arts,
in a world-renounced school.
He might be able to do anything.
And he might even be a little more impressive,
than you will ever be.
Judgement hurts.
But all it takes is you to stop it.