An Evening at Starbucks

Am I racist?

The thought had never really held any true consideration in my mind until recently. I was very fortunate to grow up in a household where cultural exploration was encouraged—most of this was facilitated by my family’s close bond to a Guatemalan family in the next block. But, my “cultural exploration” was somewhat hindered by the simple fact that I lived in a small town; most of my cultural awareness came from my interaction with missionary pen-pals and studying the atlas with my older brother. I have learned, now, however, that writing to someone about a foreign country or culture is so far removed from the experience of it, and it is very difficult to gain a real understanding of how another place in the same world can function so differently.

Irregardless, I have set my goals high for my life, wanting to spend as much time savoring and living in as many different countries and cultures as I can before my days run out. I am fascinated by the world we live in.

But now, after being in University in what I consider to be a city, I am really questioning my formal belief that I am not racist. I am a minority at my school as a normal “white girl” with Anglo-Saxon roots. My classmates are from the entire world, mostly from India and the Orient, some from Latin America (or their parents are, at the very least), and I…am from Canada. Now, for the most part, I consider these people to be my equals, my compliments; they are better at some things than I am and vis versa. I don’t feel contempt towards them in the slightest, I don’t think of them as invaders of “my country.” I like them, I am happy that I have had so many opportunities already, to make friends and have friends all across the world. I think it is fabulous! I love hearing their musics, their family customs…their life stories, just as much as I enjoy hearing my own fellow Canadians’ stories. However, recently I have noticed that there is one exception to my openness.

I am rather hesitant towards elderly East Indian men. I don’t think I was so uncomfortable around them when I first moved to the city, but now, after an incident on the bus one afternoon, I am. Basically, what happened is this elderly East Indian man with a long white beard decided to start touching the back of my neck and petting my shoulder. It only happened for a split second before I got up and removed myself from the situation, but the fact that this man thought he was justified in doing that really bothered me; he is likely at least 40 years my senior. I had done nothing to indicate that he had the right to touch me; I had never even seen him before!

So, as a result, now when I see an elderly East Indian man, my whole body freezes up and my jaw clenches. I hate that I do this; I don’t honestly think I am justified in doing so, but golly, it freaked me out and now, unintentionally, I have placed a prejudice on that one kind of human being. I’m trying to work through it though, not that it was you know, something more serious, but he invaded my personal space and I didn’t want him to.

When did my heart become open to racism?