Encounter with Racism, how to deal with it.

[Sandra1984]

I live in central London and went to my local off license yesterday to grab food, while standing on the queue by the tills to pay for my drink there was a tall white English man in his 50’s with a shaved head wearing work clothes ( looked like a builder or trade of some sorts). The guy behind the tills seem to be substituting his cousin who normally does this job but is on holiday. This off licence is run by a very friendly Indian family. Said cousin didn’t speak English very fluent and you could tell he was not very familiar with the tills but nonetheless was doing the best he could. The white man got very angry because Indian boy was taking his time with the machine so started to get annoyed.
“C’mon lad, don’t you know how to to your job, it’s taking you ages! What’s wrong with you?”
Indian boy was shy and could only spell “sorry” in a strong accent.
“Sorry? I that the only thing you can say? Can you speak any English?”
White man turns round and tells the rest of the queue: “He can’t even speak English! Good luck buying in this store”
“So you can’t speaking English mate?”

The atmosphere became tense and the Indian lad just kept looking down at the machine embarrassed and a bit scared.

“You can’t do your job mate, go back to your fuc-ing country!”

I felt rage, but I’m a spaniard myself with an olive skin complexion and a strong Spanish accent so I was afraid of saying anything to this man (which I really wanted). He was very big and aggressive so kept my mouth shut afraid of retaliation. Nobody in the queue said anything, I was shocked.

Since I live in the UK I’ve encountered similar scenes to this one a couple times. My question is: How do you deal with this type of behaviour? Would you have acted differently? I feel bad for not standing up to the Indian lad. It’s eating me up inside.

How horrible.
It's hard not to walk away from a situation like that thinking of all the things you should have said. But the fact is, this man was a stranger, behaving aggressively in public. You have no idea how he might have reacted if you'd have challenged him. The chances of him realising the error of his ways and apologising were slim to none. You have to keep yourself safe first and foremost.
If it's eating you up, you could go back to the shop and speak to them, offering to be a witness should they wish to report it as a hate crime.

I always call out racism when I see it. (As long as its safe to do so) It hasn't happened very often in recent years but I've never encountered more racism than I have in this country and this is includes the deep bible belt of the South (USA)

The last time I did, I had my child with me. A dog was coming out of its front gate on a very long lead (German shepherd puppy probably max a year old) it jumped up and barked very loudly before being yanked back. My kid screamed. I jumped. We then both laughed. We were then shouted at for being too close (walking past a house on the sidewalk) to the front path. I said no worries and sorry it's just a case of the puppy being a puppy and the kid being a kid. While laughing. She then fronted up to me and told me I was being a rude paki bitch (I'm mixed race - therefore brown so muat be Asian?- not sure how her math worked out) I told her that she was being racist and we nor the dog did anything wrong and that her reaction was over the top, and the rest of us acted out of surprise. She then threaten to call the police because clearly I was trespassing. By this time were half way down the road. I told her to please call the police and we can then discuss how illegal her racist comment was. She obviously stomped off and that was that.

I feel like we have a duty of care to others to act on this. Along as you feel safe enough to do so. People like this often use intimidating behaviour and body language to put others off and show off. It's disgusting. And I felt in the last instance that I had to address it. I won't have my son whose all also mixed race but can pass as white believing that, that type of behaviour or language is acceptable.

Would I have stood up to a man in that situation? probably not as we were the ones around although it was broad daylight.

I would have said in the same tone something like "Oh the irony! Dont you know the laws of your own country? Racism is against the law. And who are you to tell him to go back to his fucking country when he has been given the permission to be here by the people deciding who gets the visa as part of their fucking job?"

There's a lot of resources out there on bystander intervention - this video is a helpful start:

I’ve been on the receiving end of ‘go back to your own country’. It was said to me by a little old lady on a bus, she wasn’t threatening or intimidating at all but I still couldn’t muster the courage to tell her to piss off. Luckily there was a woman on the bus who immediately shouted her down.
I like to think I’d be better at calling out that behaviour if I saw it now, just because I know how lonely it is being on the receiving end!

I'd have told him to shut up and go elsewhere. Have done it before and would do it again.

That’s all you got from the post? I guess you must be the ignorant racist or maybe his wife?

Yer great advice not.

What if he pulls a knife on you you'll wish you hadn't.

The shop owner should deal with it.