I work in hospitality. There is a man who comes in regularly on his own, I think he is a widower and is in his 80's I would say, I think his age is relevant. There were some carers in with their service users from a local place and about half of them were black. He said to me, in a very quiet voice "Soon there will be more w*gs in here than white people" I apologise for the language, these are his words not mine.
Being at work I was limited to what I could say so I said "I love how our area is so multicultural now, it makes life so much better" he humphed a bit an left. I was massively insulted that he clearly thought I would agree with him.
I spoke to my colleague and said I was not going to deal with him anymore and that if he wanted serving again or in future I wasnt going to be doing it. I have the right to say that and I am comfortable with that decision.
However it has really upset me, I felt very emotional and when I got home just now, I burst into tears. Is that an over reaction? I am in my 50's, I am not naive to the fact that racism is still in the world and that some elderly people still think like this (not all, my own parents don't, but some).
I wonder if its because I have a mixed race DD, she is half Jamaican by heritage, and that's why I am taking it so personally but ignorant arseholes like that have never upset me in this way before. That said, normally I can put people in their place pretty quickly but with it being at work I couldnt really do that so maybe its the fact that I couldnt do much that has upset me.