Everyday Racism

Only a few days ago, something happened that made me realize how widespread racism really is. To me it used to be an issue that occurred in stories and experiences of other people, in books, movies, articles, in the news or on blogs. But it comes creeping and can happen anywhere, anytime and each of us can be within seconds either the concerned or the witness.

In this case, I was getting on my bus after school. I got cozy in my window-seat in the second row of the rear compartment. Just like always, nothing extraordinary. I started continuing my novel and was completely absorbed, just until I heard voices raising within the bus. In fact, there was an argument going on between the bus driver and a 60ish-man due to some trivial misunderstanding. The bus driver, who had a different ethnic background, which could be remarked by his accent, misunderstood the passengers destination and demanded mistakenly the wrong ticket price. As a result, the 60-year old lost his temper and started not only proving the driver wrong, but also shouting and insulting, so that he attracted the attention of the whole bus.

He said terrible things like: The bus driver should lern german properly and asked why he did come to Austria at all. He said, that foreigners in general, don’t know anything, but still come here and voice their opinions instead of being happy to have a job at all. Then he continued asking why he should trust the bus driver and why he needs to be driven by a non Austrian person….and so on.

Frankly, it was so shocking to witness this situation and to hear those things coming out the mouth of a random elderly man. I don’t know what happened to him in the past so that he discriminates people with different ethical backgrounds, skin colors or religions by expressing racist taunts. I don’t know if he’s afraid of being deprived of sth, or if he thinks he could be harmed by foreigners? I severely do not understand nor can I relate to the reasons behind racism.

Aren’t we all human, don’t we all breath in the same air? Don't we all have the same basic needs?

It shouldn’t matter where we come from, what color our skin has or what we believe in, since it wasn’t our own choice! At least I didn’t choose to be born a white baby in Austria…

However the positive and astonishing aspect in this story, that I didn’t mentioned so far, was that 4 Austrian men in this bus, indeed stood up and defended the bus driver. 4 men had the courage to speak up and to tell the elderly one, to either stop his racist comments or to leave the bus.

So what I intended to say is, speak up wherever and whenever you can. Racism can’t be stopped by nothing. It demands the courage and voices of open-minded people!

I hope you are one of them!

Bisous,

Lou