Sunday, January 27, 2008

Racism experience

So I was waiting at the bus stop at the campus for bus MT 65 that would get me to campus parkway from where I would catch another bus. I arrive at the bus-stop at 7:05pm and the bus comes at 7:09 pm as scheduled, but hold it right there.. The bus doesn't stop, it slows down, the bus driver knows I am waiting to get in to the bus, but he doesn't stop.
This is not the first time that a bus has skipped the bus stop and on both ocassions I was the only guy at the bus stop. And on both ocassions it was the same driver.

How do I know? On the first ocassion, the bus driver slows down but doesn't stop. I run after the bus and wave to him to stop. He stops after going some distance and asks me as I get in, "If I knew English" and that I am supposed to "wave my hand" to stop the bus. Wow, that's a new rule right. I mean, I am standing at the bus-stop looking towards the bus, you damn well should stop.

The second time, that is the incident that just happened, the bus slows down and speeds away. I am totally incensed, and since I know that the next bus-stop, the "HUB" is not far away, I sprint after the bus and catch the bus as it stops. And why does it stop at the bus-stop?? Because someone is getting down there. I get in and surprise surprise, it's the same guy. I give him a long stare and decide to complain against him to the King county Metro guys.
As I get down at the last bus-stop, I ask the bus-driver for his name and he ofcourse doesn't give it to me. But guess what, according to him, I could note down the bus number and go ahead and complain. You can clearly see his intentions here, "I don't give a damn about you, I am going to be the way I am". And I do just that. I report him to the King county Metro guys.
I am going to be here for a while atleast until I complete my phd. I am being peaceful here, going about my work everyday and contributing to the research and to my department. I don't see why I should tolerate such incidents and I won't.

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear that bro, nobody deserves this.

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  2. Thanks man.. I dint think much about it the first time, but when it happened again, I was pissed off..

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  3. That's very good what you did. People like that need to know that it's unacceptable. If nobody challanges them, they'll keep on acting that way.

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