Last month, while I was enjoying an afternoon nap, I awoke to the sound of a man talking to my mother. I was still bleary-eyed when the white, bearded police officer opened my door.
Apparently there had been a break-in upstairs (we live in a basement apartment) and he had just come to ask us if we had heard anything. I told him I hadn’t. And if I had, I said I assumed it was our landlords upstairs.
Then he asked me, “Did you do it?”
I can just imagine how confused I looked.
“Because that would be a real asshole move,” he continued.
In the moment, I didn’t fully grasp how rude he was being. I gestured to the stuff in our apartment, hoping it would communicate that I had no need to steal anything.
Though his tactics were disrespectful — and outright offensive — I do understand what he was doing at the time. I’ve watched enough Law and Order to get that I fit the demographic of a potential breaker-and-enterer. If I had actually done it, perhaps he could have shocked me into telling the truth.
But while I could logically justify it, I was stunned. How could he just ask me that? Was it because I wasn’t white like him?
As he was leaving, he asked for my mother’s name. When my mom said our Caucasian-sounding last name, he responded with surprise. My mom saw his expression and said, “Yeah, I don’t look like a Henderson do I?” Then she gave her first name, Sita. His response? “Ah! Now that fits the bill.” Maybe he was making a joke, maybe he wasn’t. Either way, it wasn’t a good one.
Sometimes people ask me why I always bring up the fact that I’m brown. You want to know why? Because I always have to think about it. White people, in the North American context, never have to think about whether or not they’re being treated differently because of their skin colour. It doesn’t even cross their minds.
I grew up going to predominately Dutch-Canadian schools. Now I live with a bunch of Mennonites. So I’m used to being a minority.
I constantly question: am I being treated differently because of my skin colour? Am I being given certain opportunities because I fit the “diversity” quota? And am I denied certain opportunities because I’m brown?
Whether or not the answer to any of these questions is yes, I still have to ask them. And I do constantly, because of police officers like the one I met a month ago. Maybe he wouldn’t have interrogated me had I been white.
It’s this possibility that reminds me that racism is still very real. Though it’s an undercurrent, a subliminal reality that many people don’t recognize, it’s still there.
And I always have to think about it.
Photo (CC) by Namphuong Van.
