Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our next storyteller, Daryl McCormack!
So last October I got a call from my mom and I was in
college and I answered the phone and she says "Daryl, have you seen the comments
made about you?" and I said "No ma'am." She sounded quite
worried and I said "Relax it's okay," and she goes "If you don't and you
haven't seen them please don't look at them." And I said "I'll be fine and don't
worry. I'll be grand." And a few weeks prior to this I had done my first
professional acting job and I was to do a two to three minute video of me urging
young people of Ireland to come out and vote for the referendum and the campaign
and it was two three minutes me speaking English and Irish and I was really proud
of it. And when my mom was talking about there was a Facebook thread of a
picture of me and it was a comment section and it was up for people to
discuss whether to vote yes or no. Unfortunately a few people, very small
amount of people, made some kind of comments about my skin color and kind of
judge judging my nationality basically. And I kind of didn't really feel
affected for some strange reason. I kind of felt I wasn't that affected, it
didn't do didn't make me feel that bad. I kind of felt mostly embarrassed for the
people that came up to me being like "I'm very sorry but I heard what
happened," and I said "It's okay." The truth was my mom kind of felt a bit more
affected than I was because she spent her whole life trying to get me to avoid
this kind of thing where people would make kind of comments about my appearance.
She grew up in Nenagh and left when she was 21 and she met my dad in California.
She went and she became a nanny over there
for a summer and he was only about 21 as well, he was a soldier in the American
army and they had their summer romance and she became pregnant and she got very
scared and came back to Ireland like the scared little girl she was and she gave
birth. So I grew up in Nenagh and I met my dad twice. I don't really know him
that much but for a man I've met twice he has a massive effect on my life and
an influence in my life just because of his color. And I remember growing up
in Nenagh and a lot of from what I remember was
young kids my same age kind of looking at me and staring at me and you know
be really prolonged stares that kind of
and I used to ask my mom "Mom, why are these are the kids staring at me?" and
she'd always come out with the answer "It's because you're so handsome." And part
of me, I didn't believe it fully.
But I got to an age where I was a bit, I was kind of getting to older where she
could keep saying that. I remember the first time I actually kind of
encountered racism, one of the first times I remember, I was playing soccer
and my green in my local estate named Rio Derick and I was playing with my
cousins and there was another guy who was also part of the estate but a different
section and he came out and played with us and I was only about 11 and we're
playing soccer and I made a bad challenge and I clipped his
ankle and he turned around to me said "Fuck off you black bastard." And being 11,
I think he was around 20, I was obviously taken back by it and I went
home to my mom and I told my mom "This guy called me a black bastard," and she
goes "Well Daryl you're gonna have to find a time where you can defend
yourself, you know." I was "But this guy was a lot older than me," you know. So she got
up and she goes "Okay where does he live?"
So me, my uncle, and my mom went over to this guy's house and this is at like
11:00 o'clock, and she knocks on the door and the guy's dad comes out and my mom
goes "Where's your son? I'd like to have a word with him." And he gets he gets his
son and his son comes out and my mom goes "I would like you now to apologize
to my son for what you called him earlier." And he apologized, and then my
mom said "I just want you to know that my son will grow up to be a bigger man than
your son will ever be," and I just remember walking away from the house
absolutely chuffed, just being like "Go mom!"
So we walked home and you know I just felt very good about it. About two years
later it's kind of another time where I experienced a bit of racial abuse.
I was walking through an estate called Cormack Drive and Cormack Drive was
kind of known to be a bit of a rough estate. And I used to walk through and
used to be a particular kid called Steven who used to kind of shared things
at me, and you know sometimes they were funny, sometimes they were like "Why don't
you go back to chocolate town!" Yeah and I'm like "You can do a bit better than
that Steven there, come on." But he would continually
shout things at me and it kind of made me confused because I was kind of like
well I feel the exact same as anyone else in this town. I grew up here, I
played hurling. And it continued for quite a while. A few weeks went by and
one particular time I was walking to school and I was coming up by the cinema
and he came behind me and he was doing the same thing again and I remembered
the way my mom walked up to that door of your Yerman's house and and gave out to him
so I just stopped and I looked at the ground and to try and find something and
all I could see was a chestnut so I picked up the chestnut and I turned back
around I looked at him and I roared "Fuck off" and I threw the chestnut at him.
The best thing is I missed. I didn't hit him, he kind of laughed at me, and I
walked towards school. About two days later who do I bump into as I'm crossing
the road but Stephen, and he's crossing this way and I'm crossing that way and
I'm kind of waiting here and I'm like I'm now about to get my head punched in.
And I'm not a fighter at all. I was reared by two mothers, my mom and my grandmother,
so I have no mean streak in me. I can talk for Ireland, I can talk my way out
of any situation but this time I felt like I was just gonna have to suck it up.
And he came over to me and he just put out his hand and he said "I'm very sorry
about what I said the other day." And I was kind of awkward because I was like
no I don't expect this I'm still waiting for a punch to come up my face. But he
just said "I'm sorry" and I said "It's all right."
And I don't get me around growing up Nenagh I've had a great childhood and it
wasn't all doom and gloom apart from these kind of two situations.
I mean I played hurling with Nenagh Rogue, my local hurling Club. I felt like I was
some sort of Sean Og O Hailpin and I remember when I was in school I got
elected for the student president and at the time Barack Obama
was elected the first black president, and everyone was like "Darren you're the
first black president of Nenagh CBS.
But I was lucky because my mom was always there. As well as enjoying being
different and standing out there was a flipside and my mom protected me from
that flipside. And although she's a Facebook warrior always messaging me, I'm
only now starting to realize how grateful I am for that. She gave me
the space to allow me to just be myself and grow as a person, no matter what
color and I suppose I just want to say thank you mom.
Daryl McCormack