RACISM | STOP HATRED| STANDING UP FOR WHAT IS RIGHT
The Time We Told A Racist to Leave Our Hostel
It was a joint effort
Trigger warning: This article includes information about a racist guest we had to evict.
In October 2020, we made the brave decision to finally leave Morocco. We had been in the country for nine months after being locked down due to the COVID outbreak. We felt safe in Morocco and were a bit worried about what the outside world was going to look like. But we were also well over the expiration date of our visas, and since we heard rumors that the government was starting to crack down on those who were staying too long, we decided to not push our luck any further.
Besides, we knew full well that we couldn’t just stay in Morocco forever.
At this time, our travel options were limited as certain destinations still weren’t accepting flights from Morocco. At one point we had a flight booked to Paris, but just three or four days after booking, it was canceled. As Europe still looked to be in a state of uncertainty, we set our sights farther east.
Turkey had no COVID requirements at all and we figured that Istanbul would be a great central location from which we could decide where to go next. We had no idea what to expect in Istanbul and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find a very modern and culturally diverse city.
We fell in love with Istanbul at first sight and somehow this massive city of 16 million people was just the medicine we needed after our long stay in Morocco. We immediately set about looking for a hostel where we could paint some murals in exchange for accommodation, as we do when we travel, and were excited to sink ourselves in and stay a while.
Thankfully a few got back to us. We chose to go and visit the first that replied and made a quick agreement with the owner. We felt at home in this place immediately. We had our own private room and we loved the vibe of the people that we met there on our first day.
Previous to Morocco, we had spent 2.5 years in Central America and the Caribbean. Obviously, a very different part of the world, and one that attracts certain people because of the geographical location. But suddenly, we found ourselves immersed in so many different, and new to us cultures, and we relished it.
Countries from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe were represented — a very diverse group of people. We loved their friendly and open-minded attitudes, and when we weren’t painting or exploring Istanbul, we took great joy in just sitting in the common room of our hostel and meeting new people.
As we had been staying at this particular place for over two months, and a few others were also there long-term, we knew many people quite well and we had created a nice little ‘hostel family.’ Most of us had crazy stories of our times when COVID hit, and in looking back I realize that we were all a bit of therapy for each other as we navigated the interesting and uncertain waters that we had found ourselves in.
A few days before Christmas Day, two Israeli guys announced that they wanted to make Christmas dinner. It was their first time celebrating Christmas and they were thrilled to partake in this different tradition. We were excited to be a part of it and looked forward to trying their food.
Already at the hostel, we had tried so many different types of food that we hadn’t encountered before and we loved every minute of it.
Christmas Day came and the hostel became a hive of activity and had a vibe of happiness all around. Despite the fact that many of the people present didn’t actually celebrate Christmas, per se, we were all in a celebratory mood and just enjoyed the excuse to come together and enjoy each other's company.
As more and more filed into the hostel that afternoon, the mood became increasingly jovial. People were making special snacks, drinks were being poured, pictures were being taken and fun was being had by all. I must say, it was magical.
Laughter, smiles and happiness filled the main living room as we enjoyed each other's company.
Chris and I happened to be sitting in the seats that were nearest to the front door, so we had front-row seats to see the man enter. Someone we would later deem a racist. Of course, we had no idea what he was like at first. In the beginning, he was just another traveler like us. A British man staying at our hostel had met him at a pub and invited him back because he had complained that the hostel he was staying at had no tolerance for alcohol and that the people staying there were boring and stuck up.
Well! We knew that wasn’t the case in our hostel, and as one does for guests to their home, we welcomed him in to partake in our festivities. Chris and I also offered him some raki (Turkish alcohol) from our bottle.
Both he and the British man sat in the living room and we started chatting about this and that. I’m going to refrain from saying where he was from because I don’t want to paint a whole country of people the same way, but I will say that he was European, very white, and had strawberry-blonde hair.
He talked about why he was in Istanbul and how he was desperately just trying to find places that weren’t overburdened by COVID restrictions. By then, Istanbul had implemented mandatory masks in public and had put a night-time curfew in place. He expressed that he was angry at this turn of events and was trying to figure out where to go next.
He didn’t come off as threatening in any way in the beginning, but all of a sudden, one thing led to the other and the things he was saying were starting to make us all uncomfortable.
At first, I was curt but still respectful. It’s not the Canadian way to be rude or standoffish. I initially challenged the strange things he was saying.
“I’m not sure I understand what you are saying here,” I told him. But this man wouldn’t quit.
Things progressed and I started to find myself saying things like, “I don’t think anybody wants to continue down this line of discussion,” as he would increasingly go down his rabbit hole of hate and racism. Chris also spoke up to him a few times.
We started to get really uncomfortable when he started going on about how important Christmas was to him and how he hated that he was in a Muslim country that didn’t celebrate it. At that point, I couldn’t understand what the heck he was doing in Istanbul at all.
Finally, after much nonsense talk, he told us that he was sick and tired of having to support people of color where he lived in Europe. Sadly, he was a strong follower of some Canadian author and he was trying desperately to encourage us to read this man's writing seeing as we are Canadians also.
I told him very matter-of-factly that I had no interest in reading his writing as I could already see that we did not see the world in the same way.
At some point, we were talking about our friend Sial who was working at the front desk in the hostel. Our new comrade commented, “Oh, I don’t have a problem with him working here but I know that I am better than him.”
When I disagreed with him and told him that I didn’t think that anyone is better than anyone else, he accused me of being “anti-white” whatever that means. From there he complained that he never ran into “pro-white” people during his travels.
The British man who had brought him hung his head and had his face in his hands. In fact, most people in the room had understandably become increasingly uncomfortable with the racist oaf. To make matters worse, we knew that our friend from Guinea was going to return from his shopping soon, and I really didn’t want to have this man in the same room as him with his ranting about what he thought of Africans.
Plus we were obviously getting really tired of what he had to say in general.
No matter how we tried to steer the conversation away from what he wanted to discuss, he would inevitably sway the discussion back to the points that he was trying to make. Finally, things escalated a bit when he reached for our bottle of raki for his third drink.
I stood up and said, “Oh, I think you have had enough of that!” and I snatched the bottle from him.
He had said enough and I wasn’t going to feed him more fuel.
Predictably, he threw his hands up in the air, “Oh, I suppose I’m the bad guy now! I really thought that this place had people with more open minds who would be receptive to different opinions.”
Yep, he played the ‘poor me’ card.
“Oh, I get the impression that you run into this sort of treatment a lot in your travels,” I told him. “Have you ever considered that your attitude is the problem?” I wasn’t holding back.
As the tension in the room rose, he got more agitated. Finally, after he got tired of a few of us arguing with his ridiculous point of view, he stood up and told us, “Well, I can see that there is no saving you people.”
Most of us broke out laughing. What a clown this guy was.
“No, we are doing just fine thanks. Why don’t you go out the door and find some other people to try and save?”
I pointed to the door and glared at him. This guy was killing our happy vibe and we all wanted him out.
After an exasperated look around the room, hoping to find somebody to support him, he finally stomped his way to the front door and left.
“Phew, that was ridiculous!” I announced to the room. “Good riddance!”
The poor guy who brought him in hung his head in shame. “I’m so sorry, he wasn’t like that when I met him this afternoon.”
Just a few minutes later our friend Kahli from Guinea arrived. Boy, we had some stories to tell him!
“Well, I guess I timed my arrival perfectly then,” he said.
“Indeed you did my friend,” I told him as we laughed.
With this awful experience behind us, the vibe of the room returned to its happy and jovial mood and we carried out our celebrations late into the night.
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