Philip Bannerman, 9/13/22

Neega Heega

I was In the 8th grade in middle school and I had made a friend in my English class. His name was Bogdan, he was a short Ukrainian kid with glasses and braces. Me and Bogdan would joke around a lot in class and have discussions. I could tell by the way he spoke about certain situations that he was a conservative, he had a couple opinions that in today’s world are widely considered controversial. Bogdan was against the feminist movement and said that “All these feminists these days do nothing but complain, go to a third world country and see what it’s like”, I replied by saying “But women these days still go through a lot with things like discrimination in the workplace and sexual assault”. Bogdan wouldn’t buy this because he was firm on his beliefs. One of the more controversial opinions he had was on the holocaust, I can’t remember the specifics on where he stood on that topic but it would most definitely offend most Jewish people. 

Not that it’s okay but these opinions he had weren’t personal to me as a black male, but that changed at the beginning of one of our English classes. We were talking and I used to N word, and since he thought the way I said it was funny he decided to repeat after me. He faintly said it so I slapped him on the back of the neck and told him not to say that around me, from then on we were cordial, about three days later was the day of the math state exam. Before the exam started I had the urge to use the bathroom so I left the room and walked down the main hall to the bathroom. The bathroom reeked of piss and since this school was a very old facility so was the restroom, it was much smaller than the girls bathroom so there was often a line outside of it. When I got there Bogdan was in the stall so I went to the smelly urinal, while I was urinating I heard Bogdan talking to the people hanging out in the bathroom most of which were my friends, and for some reason he decided to play with the N word again, by saying Neega heega repeatedly(Neega Heega is a YouTuber). At this moment I felt disrespected so I said “say that again” he did and so I approached the stall and slapped him in the face two times as he said “but Philip I thought you were my friend” I then left the bathroom, when I got back my friend came to the room and told the people at my table that I had quote “slapped the shit out of Bogdan” we laughed about it, but the laughing stopped when the principle came to the room and asked me to talk to him in the hallway, all the satisfaction I had felt from slapping him was gone now that I was in trouble for it. The principle informed me that Bogdan had told him what happened and he reminded me that the school had a zero tolerance policy for violence meaning that I would be suspended for however long, he sent me back to my room and I then completed the math state exam. 

This was bad for me because it was the third time in the eighth grade that I had gotten in trouble in school, I was usually a good kid loved by his teachers but this year I wasn’t on my best behavior. The next day my name was announced on the speaker and I was told to come to the duene’s office, when I got there he told me to sit down. My mother was called and I was told I would have to do my work separate from the school for about a week but the time period was still to be determined. My mom was surprised to get this call and she was upset that I didn’t tell her about the incident so that she could be better prepared to talk to the duene when he called. She wasn’t upset that I slapped Bogdan because she felt he deserved it. My friends were also behind me when it came to this issue and they had no issue with my action, to this day they joke with me about that day by saying “Philip I thought you were my friend”(That’s the main reason I remember that quote so well).

I was later told that Bogdan’s father was concerned about bringing him to the middle school him and I attended because of it being majority black and hispanic. I stopped talking to Bogdan after the incident but at prom me and him had a cordial conversation and that was that. I never ended up getting suspended most likely because it was the end of the year and Bogdan wouldn’t face any punishment which my mother had an issue with since they were going to suspend me for about a week. From this incident I learned not to use any act of violence at school as it will be taken seriously, in the moment I wasn’t thinking about the consequences at all, I was acting purely off of emotion. Me as of now is less likely to handle the situation the way I did, violence is a last resort to get your point across.