I took one of my kids out to a dim sum restaurant in Cupertino today. On our way out after lunch, we noticed a huge line of cars backing up about half a mile down the street, so we looked ahead to see the cause of the trouble. No one was being permitted to continue straight down the road, so we decided to investigate. We crossed the intersection to see a vehicle turned on its side, which had struck and knocked down a streetlight into the other side of the divided road. The police were out in force, and we saw a very unmoving person being loaded into an ambulance from a stretcher.
While watching this play out, an older man approached us and then claimed, "When you see something like that, you know it had to be a Chinese driver."
Join me on the flip as we find out this wasn't no comedy routine, and how to completely deflate a racist.
I turned to him and asked if he saw the accident happen.
"I work right down the street. It was a Chinese lady, you know what they're like, in a hurry to get to their, you know, Egg Foo Young restaurants."
I haven't seen Egg Foo Young on the menu of any Chinese restaurant in about 40 years, and I said so. He laughed, and went on. "But you know it's always one of them when there's an accident."
"So you DID see this accident happen?"
"I HEARD it."
"So you did not see the driver at all, correct? You don't know that it was a Chinese woman."
"Oh, it had to be. You know what they're like."
Oh, I get it. He didn't see a thing, but he'd jumped to conclusions based on his prejudices. "Excuse me, I don't know any such thing. All I know is there's a car on its side over there. Did you or did you not see this accident happen?" I think my insistence on accuracy was starting to annoy him.
"I didn't have to see it to know what happened. Every time there's an accident here it's always a Chinese. They're in such a hurry to get to these places of theirs," as he swept his arm toward the Asian mall across the street from us.
"Well, since we just ate lunch at one of those PLACES OF THEIRS I don't see any problem with that and I'm curious why you do."
"They're building all these restaurants and stores and gobbledeegook I can't read! Soon there's going to be more of them than of us!"
I've met this type before. They can deal with "minorities" only if they stay minorities and don't buy any property within 50 miles of them. Maybe he isn't using the "Ch" word, but he's just as much of a racist. And the best way to combat racism is to call the person on it and let them know it's unacceptable.
"You know, I really don't appreciate that attitude. Why don't you just peddle it on Rush Limbaugh or wherever you get that garbage, because I find it disgusting."
Ooh, that got his dander up. "Oh, so you enjoy paying taxes so THEY can come over here and spend your money?" Given that we were standing across the street from a mall full of businesses and customers that were clearly generating plenty of tax revenues, I realized that this was not someone who could follow the finer points of logic. So the best defense was his own offense.
"Your racism is not welcome anywhere here. Why don't you just go back to where you came from!"
That actually worked. He went back down the block toward whereever he was working, frightened away by his own group's usual anti-minority slogan. I think I locked up his little brain.
Then I spent a few minutes explaining to my kid why I yelled at that man, what a racist is, and why we should never be silent in the face of it.
Then my kid pointed out the really obvious thing that both the older man and I had missed.
"I saw the person on stretcher going in the ambulance, Mom. It was a man and he was white. I had no idea why he was talking about Chinese ladies."