06 Sep Everyone’s an Immigrant

I want to share a story about what happened to me last Thursday. I was heading home from Eaton centre. I was stopped at a red light, when I noticed a man on the other side of he road said something to me, which I couldn’t understand. When I looked at him, he said something again. After that he made two guns out of his hands and pointed them at me. I kept looking at him, clueless as to what he was trying to say. Then he said something that made me furious. He said, “Go back to your country you Paki”. This was the first time I had been openly harassed and faced racism. I soon realized that he had only said what he had said to make me angry. So I decided not to let it affect me. However, I would like to say that people need to educate themselves and realized that not every brown skinned human is a “Paki”. Even if I was one, jumping to conclusion about what I might be up to is not a very civilian act on his part either. Surely, he meant to humiliate me by telling me I’m an immigrant. However, he is also an immigrant. His ancestors might have settled in Canada long before mine, but he is still as much an immigrant as anyone else. He has no right to tell people what they should do or where they should live.

We are living in a time where racism has no reason to exist. We have had a President like Obama, global star like Beyoncé, and yet, people cannot process what the world is becoming. Instead of making it a positive place for everyone, such people want to downgrade people simply because they have more pigmentation in their skins. Educate yourself. Go learn something about other cultures. Stop being so hatful, and maybe you’ll be able to live a better life. Because whether you like it or not, the world is free for explorations. People will settle wherever they deem fit. Your hate and illiteracy isn’t going to discourage anyone from coming here. If it is doing anything, it is only encourage us, to do better, to live better, and to outdo what you haven’t even yet accomplished.