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What is an experience of racism you have faced ?
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this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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I'm a person of colour who has a white step parent and has grown up in Canada in a fairly mixed area.
My family history would have started in India but my parents were born in South America and migrated up to North America (both Canada and the US) where my sister and I were born. I grew up "white." My voice, appearance and behaviour are "white." I was born and raised Canadian. I'm far from proud of this country where I have spent my life but I will identify myself as a Canadian. My family history had been thoroughly white washed and erased.
I say all this because for all this history I have behind me, it means nothing to most people.
The majority of Indian people here will look at me one way until I speak and then promptly ignore me because I'm not "Indian."
West Indian people want to be my best friend until they find out I've never visited any West Indian country. Then I'll be treated as an idiot for not embracing a culture I have no real knowledge of and have not been immersed in.
Then there are the white people... No matter how white I act, I will never be "white" enough. I'll always be the colour of my skin. I could look, act and behave as awful as a white cop and still not be on the same level.
In fact, I have a "friend" who is a cop. He's not really my friend, more of an acquaintance I've known for 10+ years through another more decent friend. This guy is just fucking awful and every molecule in his body is racist and vile. He looks at me, arms full of tattoos and tells me I'd be a perfect "UC." Undercover Cop. My only value to him is to be used to incriminate fellow people of colour. I'm just not a person or anything close to equal. Always something less.
I've never really had a place where I felt I belonged while growing up. Hated for being me from multiple angles for reasons beyond my control while doing nothing harmful to anyone. There are good people out there who treat me as a person first but they are few and far between.
Another quick story, I once had a Dutch guy in Australia tell me that his last name Hoffmeister means "House Master." You know, from the times when they used to own slaves. Thanks for telling me that to my face, you absolute weirdo.
I would have legally change my name hell I was gonna do it anyways because I dont like my current name but fuck
Also from the sound of it you don't know him well which makes this worst
You know what's even worse? He's wrong. It doesn't mean house master it means court master. It's what you call a chamberlain for a royal court or other nobility.
It wasn't a slave thing, it was usually considered a position of honour.
Amazing. Layers of ignorance for an already dumb thing to say.
You wanna know the funniest thing about this? I'm also Dutch
As with many travelers in Australia, we both had work/holiday visa's that allowed us to stay in Australia for 1-2 years. This wonderful comment was thrown at me within the first week of arriving at a hostel in Sydney.
Fortunately they left a month or two later but I still avoided them when they did still live there.
He's also wrong. A "Hoffmeister" was a servent to a noble responsible for taking care of the estate. Basically what we could call a "Hausmeister" (which literally means "house master" but actually means janitor).