r/chathamkent

every time i (19F) bring my concerns up to anyone, i get berated with "oh well, racism is everywhere." or "chatham is a lot better than a lot of other places"or even "i've never heard/seen of any racism" which is crazy to me because why are you undermining the fact that a person of color is telling you from their personal experiences that you haven't went through that the amount of racism in this area is an unordinary amount. i think i realized it's because it's really easy for people who've never had to deal with racism to tell someone that it can't be as bad as they're making it out to be. or maybe just coincidentally everyone i've brought this up to just happens to be a diehard chatham lover (for whatever reason, i don't know.) but it just makes me upset that not only do so many people here defend the hell out of this place, but it's also an issue that i don't see a lot of people of color here bringing up because, guess what, there are barely any people of color here! this is a predominately white area, and anyone who tells you about it's diversity has clearly never left this place. racism is just so casual in this area by literally everyone. a lot of people here clearly take their personal opinions on immigration and make it a punishment for anyone who even has a pinch of brown in their complexion. i was born and raised in canada, i've lived in this area my entire life, and i still get "these people" comments on me, even though i've probably lived here longer than said people saying this. and something even worse, is that i've noticed since growing into an adult, that there are a lot of parents out there that i can only assume are actively TEACHING their kids their views about racism. tho this post is majorly going to be read by adults, one of the biggest issues for racism here is actually the adolescence. as i stated in the beginning of this post, i am a 19 year old woman. so i'm actively involved/around people who are my age or younger. from when i was a child, i had to deal with being called the n word by random white boys who thought they were doing something "daring" to impress their hick friends, and this has genuinely caused me a lot of trauma due to the amount of times i had to endure encounters like that by strangers as a child. a lot of my so called "friends" growing up often let their real opinions on black people slip around me, i was often considered "barely black", but to these same kids, i was clearly black enough for them to ask me if they can say the n word, or for them to confide in me with all their racist thoughts. until this very day, i am being affected by this, it's partially the reason i'm typing this big long thing because it's just the straw that broke the camels back. me and my father have to deal with being called slurs and crazy profanities when we're in public because there are these 3 little boys who i can only assume, live close to us (because they happen to be literally fucking everywhere i go,) going out of their way to harass us because we're black. this is actively ruining my summer break because we're off at the same time, so i literally feel as if i can't go outside without having to deal with being hatecrimed by people i literally can't do anything about but endure it. canada has a problem with this in general, but i can't not mention the amount of anti indian ideologies the people here have. i've heard it a lot in the people my age, but i've also heard comments by people in public establishments talking about "indians being everywhere". i can only imagine how much it sucks being indian here because there's two age demographics that hate you in two completely different ways. people my age think indians are easy to make fun of and view them completely as all the established stereotypes indians have around them, it's hate but i assume their hate is only established by what can make people laugh. and then the older people here genuinely wish death on all indians, think they're "taking all of our jobs", and yeah as i stated before, they'll take those views out on people who aren't even indian, because their hate runs so much deeper than that. it's just all around so much to deal with as a person of color. like, the average person here probably has never even thought about if racism is prevelant in this area because yeah it's not a thing they're effected by so "who cares". but as someone who's not hurting anyone and has always just tried to mind my own business and live my life, it's just so much thought to deal with in the back of my head that a majority of encounters i've had here, eventually that person will do a freudian slip and they're just as hateful as everyone else. this thought process, this worry about how im perceived because of something as stupid as my skin tone sucks so much because this literally doesn't affect anyone yet i've always been an easy target for people. please don't respond with some bullshit about "oh you must hate white people then if we're all so bad and racist 🤓" because clearly you have missed the point of this whole paragraph so why are you even reading still, but yeah. i don't hate white people at all. i don't have an issue with them. i just wish this feeling was reciprocated by the white people in this area.

if there are any people of color who have similar experiences or want to add onto anything ive said please please please respond i would feel very understood if i knew i'm not the only one who feels this way