You Know What? In Life, You Can Choose To Be Racist Or Not To Be

Now tell me, which one do you choose?

This morning I had a doctor’s appointment and like I often do, I hopped onto a bus to get into town. In Geneva, there are not always ticket inspectors on public transportation. They often do spot checks, so sometimes you can go for months without your bus, tram, or train tickets being checked.

My husband works for the public transportation company in Geneva and as such our family is entitled to free transportation within the city. He renews our transportation cards at the start of the year. Today I found out that unbeknownst to me, mine had expired at the end of September instead of at the end of the year as should normally be the case. I wasn’t fortunate to meet an empathetic ticket inspector. Instead, I came across a racist a-hole who was hell-bent on showing me who was boss.

The minute he instructed me off the bus — of course taking the time to shame me in front of the other passengers, I said to him:

“My husband works with your company. I’m sure it’s just a fluke in the system because as you know, as a family member, I am entitled to free transportation within the city”.

“I don’t trust you. Your husband does not work at the company”.

“He does, let me call him”. I responded.

“You could be calling whoever. I don’t believe you”.

“Well, let me still call him”.

And that’s what I did.

My husband answered and I explained the situation in front of all the four other ticket inspectors standing there.

At this point, the angry, racist ticket master asked me to hand over the phone which I did. He walked away with my phone. Like wtf?

I stood there with his other colleagues telling them how I wasn’t impressed with how their angry colleague had treated me.

“It’s our job. We can’t automatically know that your husband works for the company.”

“I get that, but that doesn’t mean you have to be impolite. Your colleague's comments about not trusting me that my husband worked for the same company were inappropriate. You all fully know how much your families go through with the irregular and long hours. The least he could be is kind and not so aggressive. I mean, it’s just not normal to be treated that way by one of my husband’s colleagues. How would you feel if your wife or children were treated that way?”

I could see I had gotten through to them because two of the ticket inspectors looked at me and nodded.

“You make a good point, he shouldn’t have told you that. How long has your husband been working for us again? Do you have a photo of him?”

“Five and a half years”, I responded.

“Oh, then we still consider him a newbie. That’s why we don’t recognize his name”, they joked, trying to relax the atmosphere. I felt less anxious and laughed too.

The angry ticket master returned and gave me my phone.

“I’m still giving you the fine. Your husband will have to go sort things out with human resources,” he barked.

The two colleagues seemed embarrassed by his behavior.

I took back my phone, went into my photos app, and pulled up a photo of my husband and me. In it, both of us were holding hands.

The two colleagues looked at it and expressed remorse about the whole ordeal. The racist continued peering at me with a grotesque look on his face, refusing to retract the fine.

As the men departed, one of the nicer ones stopped came back in my direction, and said:

“Ask your husband to come by the office tomorrow to get this whole thing sorted. I’m sure they’ll be able to retract the fine.”

He seemed genuinely concerned and also explained that I needed to buy a regular ticket for the remainder of the day so as not to go through another unpleasant experience. He was kind and empathetic and not a racist.

As I reflected on this experience for the rest of the day, I realized just how elusive racism can be. Here I met four men — one was clearly racist, two were not and one was neutral.

In a single encounter, I went through the frustration of racism, but the empathy present in the same situation softened a little bit of the blow of racism.

This here is what gives me hope — the two colleagues that were empathetic and kind. These are the people that give me hope that we will one day have a chance at eliminating racism all together on this giant rock rotating through space.

Thank you for reading my perspective.