I do not wish to generalize an entire nation but I am talking about Karen and Ken.
Trevor Noah was right- the UK is
racist!
I should not be complaining on this one. We Indians are pretty
racist as well. Every country is xenophobic. I have seen Malayalees giggling at the saib
and madame on their exotic tour in India, when they are actually considered
privileged. :) I have seen blacks being beaten up black and blue in India.
Well, I had this experience, how it feels to be in a foreign land
where you are an immigrant - an outsider. I had experienced the eye goggling in
Germany too, but the visit was too short to make me give a second thought about
it.
I must start with my visit to the Cotswolds. Actually, it was
serendipity that landed me in Cirencester in the Cotswolds. Landing at Heathrow
Airport after a trip to the US, I got into the wrong bus and instead of heading
towards London, I found myself going in the opposite direction towards
Gloucester. After several hours when I should have reached London by then, I
still found myself in the rugged countryside. At a road stop I enquired with
the driver and he apprised me of the situation I had landed in and informed me
as well that there were no return buses to London from Gloucester that day- Gloucester
is a small town he said. I would have to wait for the next day to catch my bus
to London!
I decided I would get down at that stop since I was dead tired after the long air and bus journey. I saw a board that said Cirencester- Capital of the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds, famed for its rustic charm, had always been on my bucket list so I decided to put up overnight somewhere.
A cheerful bearded man strolling on the road told me there was a
hotel just several meters from the stop where I could stay overnight. As I was
walking towards the direction of the hotel, I crossed a bridge when a young
woman pushing a baby in a pram approached from the opposite side. Seeing me she
froze and her reaction seemed something between shock, surprise, fear or
bewilderment, I could not fathom. She went as white as paper. I might as well have landed from Mars!
I waved my hand with a friendly "hi" as I had seen
people do in San Francisco from where I had just arrived, but she stood frozen,
pursing her lips and only moved when I had passed her.
I did not think too much of that incident at that time, but later
when I thought about it I felt there was definitely something unwelcome about
her reaction. Maybe I was not supposed to be in the Cotswolds!?
The other incident I remember was on the bus I had taken from
Nottingham to London on my way to London. There was an unruly black teenager on
the bus who was singing and dancing and generally making merry at the back of
the bus. He definitely seemed to be on weed since he did not pay any heed to
the angry protests from the passengers in the front. A young white lady who was
sitting just across my seat scolded him loudly with "Shut up You F**ing
Jamaican!" The royal family visit to Jamaica recently had been in the news
in the UK when the Jamaican government it clear that they were not planning to
continue with the British Queen as head of state and there were wide public
protests against the visit which they complained was a vestige of colonialism.
The young black suddenly went silent and then he whimpered "I ain't no
Jamican!" He was quiet rest of the trip.
Racist slurs, eye goggling, unwelcome stares, muttering at a
stranger under the breath - they definitely told a tale.
I frankly was not too bothered by these encounters - I viewed
these standoffs as a pure waste of energy on either side and pretty silly. One
side taking pleasure at prodding the other, the other side aggrieved and
feeling insulted. It would just make more sense to ignore such silly behavior. At the
same time I should also add that while some Brits behaved like self-entitled
snobs, there were another bunch who were overtly patronizing. Instances where
people actually reprimanded the first kind of people in public for behaving the
way they did - as if you needed to be handled with kid gloves, you were too
fragile to take care of yourself!
Pakistanis for instance feel badly insulted when they and all South Asians in general are addressed as "Pakis" which they view as an extreme racist slur. I do not see a problem with that. If you are from Pakistan, nothing wrong in being called a Paki. Call a spade a spade! All this energy could be put to better use!
I must hasten to add that I still encountered some pretty friendly folks, but they were mostly working class whites - the plumbers who came to my flat, the electricians and the occasional neighbour who decided to have a short friendly chat with me.
