Mom of Three Angels

An incident occurred on Saturday that has shaken me to the core and has challenged some of my core beliefs.On Saturday we thought we would venture out to Ajax for our weekly grocery shopping at the large Canadian retail superstore…  As I am crossing at the cross walk, with my kids in the cart and beside me, I am almost knocked over by a driver.  He apparently thought that although we were in the middle of the crosswalk, it was irrelevant to his getting to a parking space.  After he nearly runs us over, I point out that this is a crosswalk buster.  Only to be greeted by expletives from … you guessed it … his mom.  That’s right ladies and gentlemen, his wonderful mother.Well at this point DH steps in (they had not noticed him behind me) and tells them that they can behave in that manner before children.  He gets cussed out too.  At this point the driver stops and he and my husband gets into a heated conversation.  His mom jumps out and proceeds to hit my husband on the arm and her son calls him the N-word.  Oh, I should mention that they are south-asian.  It is at this point that passerby and other observers become interested.The police are called and although they were not prompt, the matter is handled in an appropriate and professional manner by them.  The offenders totally denied that any hitting occurred or that a racial slur was used.  However, the police could clearly see from the video and the several eye-witnesses who stuck around (thanks, everyone) that they were liars.  DH chose not to press charges and accepted their apology instead with the hope that they would think twice about what they did.So while shopping I had to explain to my 7 and 4 year olds what a n****r was and why people would use such a term.  My 7yr old found it hard to comprehend why anyone would use such a term and I was almost in tears. To say I was fluster is an understatement.  Good thing I had my handy-dandy shopping list or grocery shopping would have been a bust.Now don’t get me wrong as Afro-Canadians, we knew that we would eventually have to explain such things to our children, but I never expected to do this at this age or after having it thrown at us with such venom and hatred in a public place. I also, know that some people of African-descent use this term and I can only say they do it because it is so pervasive in the hip-hop culture.  I personally find the term degrading. It was even more startling to me to have people from another part of the world come at us with these terms that are very painful.   These are people who traditionally were not a part of the “culture” that fostered the use of the term.  I could excuse it as them not knowing the history and pain behind it, as them picking up on the American hip-hop culture that is so pervasive all around us.  However, the pain of having to answer my children’s questions is too much at this time for me to let them have these excuses.  I don’t feel optimistic about the society and how my children will be treated.  I am scared by the stereotypes that will follow them all their lives because of something they had no control over and which others use as a measure of worthiness…

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum(from “The HandMaid’s Tale : M. Atwood)