Calgary's own Nirmala Naidoo, a visible minority anchor of 2&7 News and once looking very fetching on the cover of Time Magazine in a white stetson as an example of the new face of Canada, told a story of when she and her husband (now divorced) were down in some obscure place in Montana, stepped into a bar/eatery and she was immediately targetted by the local good ole boys for rough verbal treatment, these lads assuming she was black (she's east Indian of South African origin I believe.)
Her profile:
http://www.cd.gov.ab.ca/helping_albe...=NirmalaNaidoo
There's racism everywhere to some degree and not all racists are white either, something that should be remembered.
Two years ago, I was walking around Atlanta, a city with a heavy population of blacks, on a pedestrian mall near a subway station downtown and had some racial oriented epithet hurled my way behind my back by a black guy whom I hadn't even noticed in the crowd to that point.
Three years ago, I was walking a street in Nassau, Bahamas and the same thing happened - although far rougher language - with some crusty black guy sitting in a doorway on one of the main commercial streets. Unsolicited. I hadn't even looked at the guy.
At first, you can't believe you've heard it . . . . and then you're several paces away before the words come together again and understanding dawns . . . and by that stage its rather pointless to reply.
In some ways, at least in my case, both were kind of humourous because they seemed so stereotypical, they're essentially one-off experiences that you're unlikely to encounter again, and you've got a couple of stories to tell.
Others who experience it more often probably wouldn't have found them funny.
When I was a kid, before the dinosaurs, I remember being with my parents in a diner in Edmonton and there was a black guy sitting on the other side of the room . . . . . I was totally astonished by the skin colour and couldn't stop staring so my pop gave me a good swat, probably because he didn't want a problem versus him being a progressive.
Working as a slave on my grand uncle's farm in the late 1970's, some guys came into the yard and were asking permission to use the firing range down the hill . . . . my uncle said no and as they were driving off he revealed the reason, the black man who was with them. "I won't have any "n . . ." on my land." About five years ago and about 25 years after the incident, I reminded him of that day and, to his credit, he was genuinely ashamed and said: "That isn't the way it is anymore."
There's hope. Keep plugging away. Maybe we'll get to that Star Trek utopia some day.
Cowperson