Low on the Go!

little spitfire.
(disclaimer: there is profanity in this blog, so choose to read at your own expense.)

Awhile back, when I was still in Toronto, at a mall where I frequently went grocery shopping, a random woman yelled a verbal barrage of racist remarks at me. That day, I was so stunned, that I quietly accepted her remarks. It was one of the first times that I had ever faced such blatant racism. But as I went home that day, I was so angry... mostly because other people had heard that woman yell at me, and no one stood up to defend multiculturalism in our country. The biggest disappointment was in myself. It was that day, that in my heart, I vowed that if I ever faced such blatant and unrepentant racism again, I would not be apathetic.

Today, my friend Cloris and I went to watch the fireworks at old port. When the fireworks had started, a man and a woman came and stood behind us. They were cussing like no tomorrow. It was distracting and since there were kids around, I turned and gave the couple "a look". The man started "pretending to speak Chinese"-- not in a "let me try out your language" type way, but rather, in a racist way. I gritted my teeth, but didn't say anything. The woman with him said, "Stop, they're not as bad as the fucking Arabs." At this point, I couldn't sit quietly. I remembered my vow to never be apathetic. Maybe it was a summer in North Africa spent with some of the most hospitable and caring people I have ever met, but inside, I was shaking with rage. I turned around and pulled out my favourite line, "Profanity and racism are the crutches of intellectual cripples."
The guy was pretty ticked off, but the woman said, "Ah, she's just fucking PMSing."
"I will ALWAYS PMS when there's racism involved," I stated.

Then the man jumped in, "Go back to your fucking country."
"This IS my country, and it's a shame to see it filled with people like you."

The woman yelled, "I have a fucking beer bottle and I would love to smash it over your head right now."
White with rage, I yelled back, "Go right ahead, you'd do it because I'm Chinese eh?"

They walked away.

Around me, hundreds of people from different cultures just looked away uncomfortably and pretended to look at the fireworks.

About 5 minutes later, a burning cigarette landed on my arm. It burned me, and I turned around and looked. It was the couple again. So I picked up the cigarette, and looked at them. The guy said something about how I should go back to my fucking country, and how I was a fucking Chinese. I turned to them and in a low voice said, "I was born in this country, and when white supremacists...white racists degrade my country, my MULTICULTURAL country like the way you are, it is a tragedy." I turned around and sat down.

Later, when the man went to the bathroom, the woman came and apologized, told me she wasn't racist and asked me for a hug, which i found pretty funny, since she was the one who had threatened to smash a beer bottle over my head and who had called Arabic people "fucking Arabs", but I gave her a hug anyways, since Jesus would've forgiven.

After this whole episode, the fireworks ended (most of which I missed), and I got up to go. A different man came up from behind me and told me he was SO sorry for what had happened, Canada being a multicultural country. He told me he was Arabic and that he was so grateful for what I had said. With an accent, he went on to say that next to the two of them, I had sounded very intellectual, and that as an Arab, he was grateful for me speaking up, and that he wished he had done something for me.

I'm home now, and although I know I made it awkward for the friend I was with, and for the hundreds of people sitting and watching the fireworks, I am SO glad that I said something today. I am so glad that apathy wasn't chosen tonight. Injustice is something that will be with us until the end of time as we know it. But with the freedom I have been given, just to even be born in a place where my skin colour need not dictate my freedoms, I am so grateful, and were I given another chance to receive a cigarette burn, I would do it all over again. Maybe seeing this, one day, that Arabic man will stand up too.