memes

It's been fun travelling to a few foreign places in the world as a brown long haired Indigenous Canadian.

My wife is Caucasian and she never had a problem asking for help or talking to people on the street in Europe. I was out on my own many times in places like Rome, Paris, Berlin just to sight see and the number of people that either just ignored me, looked at me in disgust or actively just wanted to avoid me was amazing. Not everyone was like this but a good percentage ... I'd say more than half the time, people were nice ... especially Germans which was a big surprise to me. We'd met many German tourist outside their country and the majority of them were jerks ... meet Germans in their home country and they're the nicest people you could meet and talk to. Spanish were indifferent, Portuguese will talk your ear off no matter who or what you look like, French will be nice to you only if you can speak a bit of French and Italians were the worst to people of colour. The English are great as long as you are sober and they are sober .. I don't drink and the only English people I ever enjoyed were the ones that were nowhere near alcohol ... as soon as they get near drinks, nothing is enjoyable with them. BUT this is all my personal experience of having travelled to Europe many times over about 15 years.

As soon as I went out with my wife, I was treated better ... but as soon as I was on my own, whole different story.

I have to say that racism is far less now than it was 30 - 40 years ago ... I can say that confidently as a brown skinned person in Canada. My dad was born in the 1930s and he said that in the 1950s / 60s, racism was completely normal to the point where he wasn't even allowed in some small towns in northern Ontario ... it wasn't a law, it was just a common understanding that 'no Indians were allowed here'.

So even though racism is far less today ... it doesn't mean it's been completely eliminated. And in some areas, its more prominent than others.