Racism: Not just hatred anymore
One of the perks of taking the bus to work is that I share the experience with people from all walks of life, not just those that live in my neighbourhood or work in my office. A bus often carries a great cross-section of society — rich, poor, educated, polite, rude, talkative, quiet, etc, etc. Different personalities, different social status, and different ethnicities.
Everyone prefers to board the bus early because they want the best chance at a good seat. I’ve noticed that the order in which people board the bus often correlates to their race. It generally goes a bit like this:
- Caucasian females
- Caucasian males
- Other males
- Other females
Now, this doesn’t happen every time and of course there are exceptions even when it does happen, but it’s a general trend I’ve noticed. It was surprising to me that something so commonplace as boarding an OC Transpo bus could demonstrate racial biases in Ottawa.
If you’ve ever boarded a bus when there is no distinct queue of people, you know how this works: two or three people at a time are in position to board the bus. They use eye contact and body language to determine who should go first. Whoever “wins” steps onto the bus and someone else takes his place. Then the little game repeats over and over until all passengers have boarded. The important thing to note is that people rarely assert their position to board the bus — instead, the others yield to them by hanging back or waving them on. What does this mean? It means that the order isn’t being forced by those who board first — rather, it is being suggested by those who board last.
This phenomenon seems to indicate that non-white members of our community are feeling like second class citizens. It shows just how far we still have to go to eliminate racism. We’ve done a fairly good job of getting rid of racism-based hatred but we still have plenty of room for improvement in the area of respect.
So, just a reminder… Until you respect all races equally, you are not immune to the charge of racism.
Once we have achieved mutual respect, independent of race, then we can work on the final component of racism: racial cronyism. I see this on the bus too — people are most likely to sit next to or talk with someone of the same race. Bus operators are noticeably friendlier to people who share their ethnicity. Of course, a few drivers are pissy towards everyone regardless of ethnicity. 
Everyone is guilty of racial (and cultural) cronyism. People feel a natural affinity towards others who have something in common with them. If we are to truly eradicate racism, we must transcend these perceived differences and embrace our fellow inhabitants of this world.
I guess as humans (after all, the only true race is the human race) we will always discriminate and harbour biases against certain people. We judge others based on the way they talk, the clothes they wear, how attractive they are, how fat they are, how much money or education they have, what kind of work they do, and how they communicate. We grade others by comparing them to ourselves or how we would like to be. To some extent this is unavoidable, but we should remain conscious of it. We must agree that race or ethnicity is one of the least meaningful of all differences between people.