Coming fact-to-face with racism...again
It happens to all immigrants, some idiot will say something. It has happened to me as well - but never quite like this, not with so much stupidity.
So, I met an Indian acquaintance for drinks at a cafe in the city and afterward went to the bus stop to catch a bus home. I have actually been so pleased to not be driving into the city anymore - and I am so pleased not to drive around in circles, looking for parking anymore either.
My drinks companion, came running back as she left, saying, "I want you to sign the book." She had bought a copy of my latest novel and wanted me to sign it.
There were two boys at the bus stop, white, no hair - you know the type. And one of them said, "If you don't speak Danish in Denmark, get the fuck out of here."
My drinks companion was shook up and so was I. My response was, "Don't take that tone with me." I signed the book and my companion went her way, while I waited for the 1A bus at the stop. It was about 9:30 p.m.; there were people around but not that much. The only solace was that the American Embassy is literally a few steps away.
I called my husband as I waited for the buss, asking him what should I do. I was a little concerned about standing in the darkened bus stop with these two crazies. He suggested that I either hail a cab or start walking toward the next bus stop. I was tempted - but I told him that no one was going to run me out. I wasn't going to be scared off.
I got into the bus, the racist boys weren't allowed in - they had expired bus passes and didn't want to pay for a ticket. I sat down next to a Danish woman for whom I had to give way as she had to get off the next stop. She thanked me politely and I realized that i wasn't expecting her to thank me. Because of what happened at the bus stop, i was expecting her to say something stupid, something like they had said and now in the light of a bus with fellow passengers, I could then turn around and say something back to her.
But at the end of the day - you can't argue with punks. You can't argue with true racists who are able to say something nasty to a stranger.
I have been told by others that this is not uncommon - that this happens all the time to all immigrants. I have been told that I shouldn't have stayed at the bus stop, I should’ve started walking. I have been told that I should be more careful. And I thought that Copenhagen was safe!
All I can say is that Pia Kjaersgaard, the leader of the racist Danish People's Party should be proud - she's helping spawn idiots like those punks who don't respect people or appreciate differences or even have common civic sense and decency. She should be proud that she's helping young Danes become racists - and as the world becomes smaller and smaller, their racism will help these young Danes wither within their claustrophobic and xenophobic society. The future of Denmark is indeed looking very bright.
posted by Amulya Malladi @ 12:42 PM
12 Comments
12 Comments:
i do not know much about the class situation in denmark, but the fact that those young men did not have bus passes feels very familiar.
as a blue-eyed, blond-haired american, who grew up in a very racist, blue collar family, i could never understand the rage against immigrants and, more broadly, people of color. it seemed that we should feel more affinity with the brown-skinned woman scrubbing floors than the white woman whose laundry my mother ironed.
but, with time, i have come to understand how trapped and degraded the members of my family felt. lower class status can be just as immutable as the color of one's skin. my grandmother was a maid, my mother was a maid, and i, as a young girl was a maid. (i was a contrary child who did not know her place; i am no longer a maid.) this immutability, i suspect, is partly a function of the self-perpetuating nature of a broken spirit, but also the insidious function of the good ol' protestant work ethic that says "you get what you work for, and if you don't, something must be wrong with you." (of course, if my forebearers had had the benefit of my ivy league education, they might have questioned this, citing the unequal initial distribution of capitol between themselves and their more successful contemporaries.)
immigrants, however, do not seem so trapped. and history, at least in the united states, shows that they are not. irish and chinese immigrants, for example, were absolutely reviled upon their arrival in america, but within just a few generations, their social status changed dramatically.
what is more, while the european american doing manual labor is on the bottom rung of his socio-ethnic ladder, this is not necessarily the case for the immigrant -- i have known many immigrants with advanced degrees who, because of language limitations, work menial jobs. others, like yourself, arrived ready to skip the bottom rungs of the ladder entirely. and, even if an immigrant comes from his country's lower classes, chances are that he comes to his new home determined to improve his lot, and believing that he can. he may not achieve significant economic success for himself, but chances are that his children will be better educated than he was and armed with a sound work ethic. indeed, as i understand it, second generation americans out-earn those from families with longer-term residence in the united states.
so, i think that those in lower class, native populations, such as those hoodlums at the bus stop, are ripe for the picking by pia kjaersgaard and her ilk, who tell them "you are not the on the bottom rung of society . . . those brown people are". their frustration and wounded dignity are easily tapped into, easily misdirected, easily inflamed.
as for the pia kjaersgaards of this world, i can only guess that they seek power and have seized upon an easy means of acquiring it. not to say that they are not racist, too. having lived and studied among the elite and powerful, wearing my clever blue-eyed, blond-haired, articulate disguise, i find that the upper classes are no less racist than the lower. but they usually know that it is to their advantage to hide it in public. i do believe, however, that their racism is only a facet of their classism (remember, if you didn't get what you worked for, something must be wrong with you!), for skin color and accent are handy, if crude, indications that a person is not "one of them".
why do i say all this? i guess, i mean to support your refusal to be diminished by this ugly experience and to point the finger at those in power as the real threat. i am trying to say, too, that you should not give up hope for those "two boys at the bus stop, white, no hair". i think that they hate themselves more than they hate you, and one day, if they are able to build dignified lives for themselves, they will turn to the immigrant living next door, working at the same machine, or standing at the same bus stop and see, quite clearly, that they have so much in common.
and, finally, i thank you for sharing your story, amulya malladi.
wishing you peace,
ms. layabout
a sad tale and an interesting response and analysis; sadly there have always been, and there will always be , nasty minded people such as these around, not all of them ill-educated and lower-class; those at the opposite end of the class spectrum just diguise their prejudices better
Thanks for your thoughts on the bus stop incident. There will always be punks - no matter where we live; I just worry that this might be the direction the country is going in. Everyone tells me that things are getting worse when it comes to xenophobia - if they were saying things were getting better; that would be a comfort.
Hi Amulya,
Although it would have been clearly shocking, I would view the situation positively.
It sounds like an individual temperament and nothing to do with racism. The ratio of them being mean to anyone is just about clear. They said the first thing they felt would sting you (your race made the easier excuse)...just as they may have done to any other Dane about some other subject.
Punks rebel against the mainstream as a whole. The fact that these blokes used expired bus passes said everything.
I live in Ireland. There are few foreigners in Dublin but I blend in the crowd because I just continue to stay excited about life and its possibilities. I do the things I enjoy and people continue to be nice. I think the lady in the bus
was your silver lining at the end of a cloudy episode. :-)
Thanks, Susan. You are of course right. In time, I will stop smarting about it.
Oh I had similar experiences while I lived in copenhagen....and quite a few times in London too..I totally understand how it feels....it rages me up internally too...but I feel these guys at the bus stop are frustrated with life and themselves...have seen many like that...so we shouldn't pay heed to remarks from such nasty people...they are not worthy at all.
Rupa, I'm so sorry that you've had to experience this as well. It's very disturbing and sits in the memory for a long time.
Oh Thats so sad to read!..How depressing to experience such a thing...atleast in India, foreigners are treated kindly!..
Hi again Amulya,
How are you doing? :-)
Here's looking forward to your next post.
amulya - that was something that shook you up? well it could be worse in UK... when u are called paki and just the reverse in places like birmingham and hounslow when the desi rudeboys react..hv you read 'londonstani'?
i hv not yet read your books, our library has just one - the mango season, which my wife read & enjoyed. I will look for 'the sound of language'
This is terrible. But not unexpected. I lived in London for six months, many years ago, and I didn't experience racism but there was a lot of talk about it on television - about how cops in some area were racists and what they were doing about that. Racism is a tough thing to face. I think we'd rather someone came and said "god, you're fat" or "you look ugly in that pretty dress" than have someone say "you are a horrible person because you don't speak my language and your skin color isn't like mine."
I just wish that parents were careful about what they said at home. It starts with us parents - if we teach our kids that racism is bad and we don't judge people, period, we can stop this from growing. But what should we do when parents believe what they tell their children?
It happens everywhere and these don't go too far in their lives. No wonder they drink and throw the bottles everywhere and its scary to step anywhere.I have just read one of your book Mango Season and it was damn good.
Nice to meet u here:)
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