"Fucking pki, leave this country you fucking pki, you're ruining this country
hope you drop dead
I'll bust your head open, you should be dead you fucking p*ki"
were among the words I heard hurled in my direction this morning walking near UTM.
This ensued for the next 2-3 minutes as I heard him behind me at first 20-30m away, following the same corners I turned and route I took getting much closer. It was only when I turned a few tight corners and got further into campus that I stopped hearing his voice.
It wasn't empty, there were dozens of people around, turning their heads back to look at who was yelling. I wasn't the only brown or BIPOC person walking in the same direction, so I don't know if it was directed at me, or someone else. I also saw a young brown woman in front of me start to run away.
I was quite shook and didn't know how to react as I've never dealt with such a situation before, I just mostly tried to ignore the yelling and continue walking forward, looking back or at reflections to ensure I was at least some space away from him. For one of the first times, I feared for my safety in this city.
If you're at all familiar with the campus, you would know there are security guards everywhere, I passed by a few. Not one bothered to stop him or say anything to him. I'm still quite rattled 2 hours later.
I was born and raised in Canada, I've lived here my whole life, I've never experienced such direct and blatant racism in person, in the rare cases I've seen it, it's been much more subtle.
Online is a different story where on Twitter and Instagram there's a barrage of racist comments anytime there's any post with a brown person, especially on reactionary pages like 6ixbuzz, or even on subreddits where the mods have their own bias and allow racist comments to stay. I fear all this online hate and racism towards South Asians is not just online anymore, it's spreading to the real world as we continue to allow and perpetuate hate online.
If we keep allowing them to freely spew hate speech online, it will only embolden more to say it in person or do worse. Please don't allow this to go on, if you see hate online, report it, counter it, don't let them feel it's okay.