In Canada is racism a spectator sport?

Happy to have found a seat near the back of a homeward-bound transit vehicle I did my best to settle into what had all the appearances of a standard rush hour ride. The next few intense moments could not have been predicted, but then I am convinced more and more that this is the actual way they happen here. No warning and starting out innocuously with little lead time because they go from almost nothing to decidedly explosive in a fraction of an ill guided perception.

Just a few seats ahead of me sat a very tough looking aboriginal man in a full army-surplus fatigue outfit. My personal, in-my-mind-and-constantly-running, amuse-track immediately went to, “where did you leave Che”, and, “where’s the revolution?” Seated immediately behind me and in full out, ‘we’re the only one’s who matter and don’t care if you all around us don’t want to hear our conversation mode – which was inane and vacuous, anyway, in that who’s better than whom at the office banter – were two commuters. Because I could not fully see them without turning right around and into their faces I was able to reference a few things. They had strong Australian accents and the woman was noisily chomping into an apple in a way that would have received a lecture on manners from my no doubt rolling her grave, champion of all that is mannered, mother. The accent is important to the story as it only blazingly illuminated a dynamic that I find sometimes all too very Canadian.

The next moments were priceless in what they presented. The aboriginal man turned and suggested politely that the woman tone down her voice as she was too loud and it was bothering him. The fact that someone spoke above the usually commuter subdued tones seemed to have been shock enough but not for this woman. She paused, no doubt some kind of eye rolling took effect and she continued on with her story about some world affairs altering incident intra-cubicle at work. My ‘friend’ of the fatigues not satisfied spoke again but this time addressed the loud chomping on the apple and what he said was the woman’s loud voice. The man she was talking to at this point, no doubt acting on a rush of testosterone traveling so fast through his system his judgment had to have been temporarily blinded decided to take it upon himself to come to his friend’s aid. His first words including asking why the fatigued on would not shut up included a suggestion that the individual must have spent some time in jail. I expected all out warfare at that reference but instead with an innocence, beautifully owned by my friend in fatigues, the reference was absorbed and bragged about. He had spent time inside and was proud of it. This was taken by the Australian man as fodder for further insult. The exchange lasted about five minutes of the ride and included the fatigued one making bodily function references and taking on the posture one would take to produce them. This proved entertaining for the now truly captive audience standing and sitting around this drama. Of course it is hard to tell if a commuter crowd is even alive enough to be entertained but I know they were very much aware.

Now let me add that I am a Canadian of African heritage, choose your hyphenated expression of my existence if you must but please do so wisely because I do not hyphenate – not in public anyway. My experiences with racism have come in many forms and in many places including Canada. No greater or lesser anywhere, racism does not come in good or bad. The observation of the event on the commute was oddly very Canadian to me because of these factors: Me, the Aboriginal man, the two Canada adopted Australian individuals and the rest of the commuter zombies who stood by seeing but pretending to not really hear anything. I was ready to come to the aid of the woman and her friend, so seemingly and unfairly verbally reproached; in reality transit is a reluctantly shared experience and not a library room, lounge or mom’s living room. Stuff happens, gets shared and then you get off. My preparation to come to the aid of the two sensitivity challenged changed in the flash of a second when it seemed necessary for the man to suggest that there had been a prison experience for the aboriginal man. Only one unnecessary reference could have been his ammunition cache for that inane statement; the arithmetic of the simpleton. Them’s fightin’ words where I come from. It all ended without physical contact. I guess that counts as well for them? To everyone’s relief the fatigued one exited the vehicle with much dramatic ceremony but never outwardly acknowledging that he had been sickeningly and racially defined.

Many references came to mind, the instant ability for racism to bubble to the surface, the fact that had fate not put these people together at the same time we might not ever have had their sentiments exposed and they would have simply gone on about their veiled lives, Australia and aboriginal affairs, Canada and aboriginal affairs and the way so many seemed so ready to just hope it would all go away, swept under that giant all-Canadian carpet of ‘nothing to see here’. What was the degree of assumed comfort that the man felt he was adorned with that made him feel he would be able to be so freely insensitive and racist? What is the reason for such a degree of rage, dislike and bravado simmering just below his surface? Was it simply assumed that he had some position of privilege or better-than over the aboriginal just because? That is some very sad and mighty just because. Is anything scarier than an ingrained attitude and comfort in acceptance of ideas without any question based on substance free assumption?

For the longest time as a youth and younger I remember my parents speaking about and comparing how racism was experienced by them in different places and spaces. How they preferred the dynamics of one to another but preferred none at all. Blatant racism verses systemic and veiled. Why go where you are obviously not wanted but how nightmarishly dangerous a place could be with a version of racist attitude that only came about when provoked or when a surface was scratched. It has touched me in many ways and it is always as loud and offensive. I wonder sometimes if the way I experienced it on this day is more traumatic to me than the blatancy of racist name calling and physical assault? The unexpected shock, even having been raised to be (and unfortunately having to have been) armed to be cognisant of its ugliness, leaves me tingling and uncomfortable. I am less angered in my more mature years than I would have been because I apply a sense of dismissiveness to those who are so blissfully ignorant. To prevent an unnecessary and potentially police involving incident I would have stepped in. It is my nature and a skill I have training in and a piece of what makes me proudly Canadian. This nation prides itself on solving problems. Often other’s problems but problems all the same. Of course if ‘Mr. defending my friend’ had swallowed the incident and pretended it was not happening instead of succumbing to testosterone and unchecked bravado he might have choked on something later that evening? Who knows, if the ‘out there’ of the whole drama including the insensitive one’s projectile offering could have, for him, prevented a later in life ulcer my work here, and there, is done…?