The function of racism is to dehumanise, destabilise and antagonise, to cast the victim in a light whereby they deserve the maltreatment. It is always a harbinger of cruelty and callous behaviour. It is the permission slip the darker side of people’s minds needs to take over their behaviour, suppressing any emerging empathy. Should there be any power or greed motivation to maintain the racism, then it becomes culturally reinforced and defended. Rare, induced or orchestrated occurrences of violence in the victimised population generate fear and the problem becomes entrenched for generations.
Leander has never understood this as a child - what child would anyway, but a child of galdori parents had no hope of even considering that his world was ruled by xenophobic beliefs. Abandoned in Old Rose, torn away from a life of privilege, the boy had been introduced to the underside of the coin in probably the kindest way his mother could conceive.
But the opportunity to continue to thrive - albeit in a lesser way that his mother could have provided - had been lost on Leo eight years ago, when anger bubbled to the surface, left to fester until it morphed into rage and bitterness. It was something he still clung tightly to, like armour, protecting him from the world.
“I hear you’ve caught the attention of Hawke.” The quill tip paused over the parchment, bleeding ink into the dry leaves. The boy glanced up to see Resha leaning against the door frame, arms crossed against his chest. Leo rolled his eyes and placed down his quill. He didn’t know why: the pair fought more and more frequently now, and each argument only seemed to help Leo find more and more creative excuses as to why working on his projects was as essential to him as breathing the air in the atmosphere. But one look at Resha told him to capitulate, so he leaned back in his chair.
The thing was... if Silas Hawke was the sun of Old Rose Harbour, the source around which the City, then Resha Farrow, owner of the Attic, was like the proverbial black hole that circled said sun. Nothing got past him. He absorbed everything, but it was rare that any information came back out... it was probably why he was so neatly under Hawke’s thumb. “What of it?” The tone was more impetuous than Leander had intended, but he didn’t like the judgemental way in which Resha was watching him.