At this moment, I'm still feeling anxious from what happened an hour ago in town, as I cycled back home from meadowhall shopping centre. I'd called at Subway for lunch and was sitting down on a bench in the centre of town. These two young asian men walked by me, and unusually one of them called to me "say mate, are you part of the EDL?"
(The English Defence League held a demonstration in my town's centre yesterday. From what I gather, theyre anti-muslim, anti-islam, anti-immigration, etc.)
I immediately felt threatened by the guys question. He was obviously looking for trouble. I replied swiftly, saying "No mate".
"You fucking sure?" he said back.
"Yeah."
Again, he said "You fucking sure?" to which I chose to ignore, and he continued walking.
There were police on foot not that far away. I wanted to go and report the guy for the threatening behaviour he targetted towards me. I suffer from social anxiety though, which makes these things difficult.
I just want to vent my anger and upset, so here I am. I am totally against any organisations such as the EDL. I was in a discussion with two of my friends only a few nights ago, and one of them was being 'passionate' about his views on immigration, which I found very negative. I defended the sorts of people he was verbally attacking. It's genuinely upsetting to have been threatened by someone who is from a culture who I was defending only a couple of nights before. Obviously, you get the bad and the good in any group of people, but I still felt betrayed. The asian guy was ready to attack me based on my answer to his interrogative-like question.
Yeah, so.. this has happened and now I'm all anxious and sad
It just makes you think 'what's the point in defending a group of people if you're also defending people like this'..