Coming home from a work session in the CBS office on the sixty one bus a middle aged man was sitting close to me. He spoke quite loudly to his companion seated across the aisle of the bus in a way that indicated a degree of mental impairment. After I stood up to get off at my usual stop, along with several other passsengers, the man addressed a youngster queuing behind me to get off, repeating loudly
"Them muslims are the scum of the earth."
I stood there, frozen to the spot for a moment, wondering what if anything I could say that would be overheard by passengers, which was constructive and not aimed at humiliation in the ten seconds before the bus doors opened. The youngster then spoke up quite gently in a broad Cardiff accent.
"Scum of the earth .... If I was a muslim and you said that to me, I think I'd have a heart attack."
It was only after he got off the bus cuddling his girlfriend that I realised he was black. He was sensitive to the situation, direct and very quick witted. What he said was simple and decent enough for everyone on the bus to grasp, including the speaker. I wanted to congratulate him - but how could an old geezer like me do that in a few casual words with the same elegance without sounding patronising?
I wonder how many young people of colour grow up learning instinctively how to handle racist insults and defuse them? Such social skill merits everyone's admiration.
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