1st hand stories of racism, describe a experience you've had or personally observed.

[Brakeman]

I've been thinking about the issues put forth by the Ferguson, Mo unrest and I wandered what experiences my forum members have either personally had or one's that they have observed directly themselves.

Two big ones stood out in my life. In Kentucky near the East Tennessee border I was walking with 5 girls to the grocery store as a student. (circa 1985) One of the girls that was walking with us was black and from somewhere out west, I don't remember where anymore. As we walked down the road a couple of red necks stopped their truck and the passenger threw a plastic cup of tobacco spit on the black girl while saying several horrible things. It was the day before classes was to start and myself and my friends tried in vain to get the hysterical girl to quit crying and stay. We promised we would do everything we could to keep such things away from her. In the end, she went home and we never saw her again. I hope that the girl was able to find a better college and didn't miss out, but I will never forget the vivid disappointment in her eyes. I don't know why she chose the school, it had a cute campus and was founded by order of President Abraham Lincoln, but it was in the heart of the Appalachian redneck belt, so I suppose it wasn't as uncommon as I thought it was, but up to that point, the worst racism I had personally seen had been the horrible racist questions that some completely unaware whites asked of blacks or other races.

No more than a couple of years later, I landed in Hattisburg, Mississippi at the University of S & M. (Yes, I knew Brett Favre, he threatened to kill me!) Again, on the day before classes was to begin, I heard a concert at the basketball auditorium of the type of music that I loved, now known as "old school funk" The flyers stated it was open to anyone for an small entry fee and I bought a ticket and walked into a concert where I was the only white I could see, but I was young and naive and it didn't matter to me. I quietly found a seat way up in the bleachers and listened to the band. About 10 minutes in, I noticed about 5 or 6 guys with their backs to the band staring me down. It made me uncomfortable so I got up with the intention of finding another seat nearer the door. The guys followed me and as I got to the door they began to run after me. I bolted through the door and the guys followed me outside and one of the guys brandished a knife and promised to kill me if I didn't stay away.

I've seen smaller things since then but I think personal stories are so interesting.

[Polaris]

What surprised me about Americans was how racist so called liberals were (the ones in college with anti-Bush signs)...I would never have thought people from Boston would be so racist. Then again, they had little experience with people outside of their particular race (whites) from what I observed....frankly, worse than Southerners for how much that surprised me.

It's hilarious when they tell people they're not of a particular race because they don't fit the stereotypical appearance...yes you have Americans who actually walk up to people and say that...if I was one of them, I would muzzle them in a second.

[Endo]

So this black guy and I were on a club team, and I made popcorn and burnt it. Then he comes over and says "Smells burnt." and I said "Well, I'm white, I wouldn't know anything about it", trying to make the joke that white people can't smell, and he takes it personally and like I'm calling him "burnt" or something. Oh well, he was kind of an ass.

[paulpablo]

I don't live in a very friendly town and I didn't attend a very friendly school so its hard to say if what I've seen is racism or just people getting beaten up and using race as an excuse.

When I used to go to school I saw noses broken, heads kicked in, bricks thrown at people, basically tit for tat racial attacks, pakistanis vs whites, black people would usually relate more to white people and be on their side.
In my physical education class one white guy once verbally abused this pakistani guy for pretty much a full 45 minutes straight, calling him abdulla the fat paki, telling him he was going to burn down the mosque he went to and so on. The pakistani guy ended up getting upset and crying eventually, I was laughing so hard I was crying too, just because in the past the pakistani guy had made fun of how I walked or something I can't remember.

My pakistani friends used to always say how they were glad to see racist attacks against white people, then me and my white friend would usually say we were glad to see in the news loads of muslims being killed by bombings and stuff.
This was all just typical school mentality, these pakistani people really where my friends but where I went to school you verbally abuse your friends on a daily basis, and try and pick controversial topics.
I think things have calmed down in my area after we had these race riots. Things will probably heat up again especially with all the muslim pedophile gang troubles.

[rexbeccarox]

So this black guy and I were on a club team, and I made popcorn and burnt it. Then he comes over and says "Smells burnt." and I said "Well, I'm white, I wouldn't know anything about it", trying to make the joke that white people can't smell, and he takes it personally and like I'm calling him "burnt" or something. Oh well, he was kind of an ass.

Yeah... you were being the racist in that situation.




A couple of weeks ago, on my way across the country, I was staying in a shitty motel off the interstate. I was leaning against the wall outside on the walkway, texting, when a couple pulled into a parking space across from where I was standing. As they got out of their car and began walking my way, I pulled my feet back to make room for them to walk by. As they entered their room next to mine, I heard the woman say "racist white bitch."

I'm not sure what I did that was racist, and I know I didn't say anything. I did smile at them as they walked by, as is my nature. All I wanted to do was to chase after her declaring my non-racism. I actually got a bit flustered over it.

[BlackMason]

So this black guy and I were on a club team, and I made popcorn and burnt it. Then he comes over and says "Smells burnt." and I said "Well, I'm white, I wouldn't know anything about it", trying to make the joke that white people can't smell, and he takes it personally and like I'm calling him "burnt" or something. Oh well, he was kind of an ass.

That was ambiguous.

[Esquilax]

For whatever reason, racists tend to be attracted to public transport that I'm on. Two incidents stand out the most for me:

After graduating high school I spent a year at a technical college before moving on to university, the student body of which had a high level of asian students. Once the day finishes there was always a rush to the bus stations as people flooded out of the place from there and the university next door, and as I was waiting for my bus home the (middle aged and very out of place) woman beside me took it into her head to comment very loudly that there were too many "yellow" kids around, and that they should all go back to their own country. In a very kind gesture, she then attempted to get me to agree with her, being that I was the only white person anywhere near. I just shook my head and went off to talk to a friend who had recently come to my country from Malaysia, which I think made my point adequately.

More recently, I got trapped on a train with an older Aboriginal woman who spent the entire trip (from one end of the line to the other, lucky me) shouting racial epithets at all the white people, whom she accused of invading "her" country (I was born there, for the record) to steal her jobs and give everyone AIDs. Nasty as it was, she was shouting at the train in general and seemed really crazy and incensed, so it didn't seem smart to talk back there. Especially when I had to stick with that train for half an hour more.

Lucky I had headphones.

[Tobie]

On my campus, we have a lot of swans and geese, which get very protective of their eggs. Some students managed to get a hoax news story about one of the swans being racist on to national news. They got people to phone in to the radio and describe how the swan was attacking asians (and the odd italian).

Where I live, we mostly get casual racism. There aren't many non-British white people in my village so most people (especially the older group) haven't needed to be that careful about it.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Some time ago, I was at a market. The man in front of me in the queue was east Indian of some sort. After he paid and left, the lady clerk looked at me shook her head and said, 'Fucking Paki's everywhere you go these days.' I said something like, 'And yet you took his money', put my items on the counter and walked out.

Boru

[jesus_wept]

About 15 years ago I was refused entry to an Afro-Caribbean Social Club (6 months earlier it was a Working Men's Club and I thought it still was) because I was (and still am) white. He said it was because I wasn't a member, so I asked him how to become a member and he said "you need to be Afro-Caribbean". Ironically the club has now closed down, it didn't last long, because there weren't many Afro-Carribeans in the area.