Making an exaggerated show of looking for someone, in the line-up at the local TD Bank in Vancouver, a white woman said: "…none of my kind…in the line-up". I smiled at her. The gesture encouraged her to amplify her frustration.
She said that she did not like the immigrants as they spit everywhere, begged, and took drugs. Of course, she made it clear that I was obviously different. The line-up was long, and we had an opportunity to discuss her arguments. Visible from the line-up were beggars standing outside the bank. None of them was Chinese, people she despised. I reasoned that I had never seen a Chinese (or Indian) begging in Canada. Not that I wanted to prove their racial superiority as they do enough of these things in India and China. What I did manage to show to her was that most of the people she actually detested were of her "kind".
Towards the end of our discussion, she told me about her frustration with her children, their failure to get jobs, their dependency on her, and her loneliness. Wonder how much her hatred for immigrants is related to her situation, but given an open forum for discussion, it is possible to reason that she might be blaming the wrong enemies. alas, such an open discussion is a rarity.
Fortunately — or at least for the sake of the discussion that had taken place - neither she nor I had seen the headline news in the newspaper of that day about the honour killing of an Indian girl. Later with my friends I discussed about my interaction at the bank, and what has been happening with forced arranged marriages among those in the Indian community, and the gang violence among the Indian youth in Vancouver. For sure, forced arranged marriages are not not a known problem among the white Canadians, but the most politically correct, do not prefer to call it a problem with the Indian community.
Recently I was with an american guy and a Dutch girl. The american guy acted trendy by blaming america for all the world’s problem--somehow it helps people like him to exclude themselves intellectually from the anti-american tirade, and at the same time enjoy the feeling that america must be so powerful to create havoc in the world. So obsessed both of them were with "equality" that when I told them about racism among the asians and africans, corruption and genocides in those continents, they insisted that all these things also existed in the West, looking at it in black and white. They refused to see that there could be cultural problems in the poor countries (tribalism and widespread corruption in africa, say) that kept those countries from developing. Conditioned to look at the world from the equality-glasses, the only culprit they can see for all the world’s problem is, paradoxically, the West.
Once sitting in a restaurant, unaccustomed to the political correctness of Canada, I asked a Canadian friend, why so many of the native Indians were drug addicts. She stopped me abruptly insisting that I was getting into an unacceptable discussion. My questions as a new immigrant about why in Canada only the European settlers are given a bad name, as if all the natives were complete saints went unanswered.
a friend’s friend once visiting Vancouver from Germany made it clear to my friend that she did not like non-whites. It was probably the first time that I knew for sure that someone was a racist. I also knew that I did not have to waste my time on her. Nor did I need to struggle in the dark to figure out why she ignored me, never knowing what it was about my personality that repelled her.
My friend’s friend was among the better of the racists. There are worse kinds. By conventional standards they are not called racist. They are the ones fighting for the "rights" of all and sundry: from the poor working in Nike "sweatshops" to those whose ancestors suffered many centuries back. Most of them have never visited the poor countries. These missionaries spread the message of doom and gloom. They tell me that I cannot succeed in Canada because I am not white. They tell me that I cannot stand on my own feet, because my colour does not give my feet any strength. They cannot believe that I can make money from my own efforts, and want the society to give me alms as social security. They demean, and insult me. They are the losers of the West; their only consolation is a silent feeling of racial superiority they try their best to hide.
The best situation is to let the bigoted speak, and challenge them. If they cannot be changed, at least I know why they despise me, and I do not have to waste my time trying to work out why they do not like me. The hypocrites are of course, the worst; all discussion is meaningless with them — their racism will stay unchallenged.
Jayant Bhandari is a freelance columnist living in Vancouver
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