Rhymes With Papaya

Many years ago, a security guard at a building in which I worked waved me over. He just wanted to say hello. Apparently, out of the hundreds of people who walked in and out of the establishment every day, I was the only one who smiled and waved as I went by.

I'm terrible with names. Absolutely terrible. I forget almost as soon as somebody tells me, never mind somebody from over a decade ago. However, I remember that he was a respected professor in his country of origin. He happily showed me letters his former students wrote to him, and made sure to say goodbye to me on the day he was leaving to go back to his home country and teach.

In case anyone is wondering: Canada (and probably the U.S., too, but this happened while I was living up north, and they actually ran a campaign to raise awareness of how unfair it is) has a bit of a problem with under-utilizing some immigrants. That's a fancy way of saying, "You have all this education, skills, and work experience. Here's a job for people without any of that."

Anyways, I thought of this man as I made the mistake of reading the comments to a news article. There are too many people determined to be prejudice and ignorant, believing that anyone who isn't like them must be here illegally, a criminal, and/or uneducated and without marketable skills. Seriously? That's something that you can't really know just by looking at a person.

So, I guess my point is that I wish people would remember this. We don't know. That, and if you find yourself making a statement followed by, "Not you; I mean the *other ones*," then please: stop, and think about what it is you really want to say (which hopefully isn't that all brown people need to go away).

“I don’t even know her!”

- You do!

“Since when?”