Visiting and praying in the synagogue and the mosque in Sofia was one of the two most rewarding experiences of this trip. The other occured Saturday night. I was sitting on a bench alone in Vienna. Sherkhan was already in Milan.
I had nothing to do and I was exhausted. An old man got up from the bech and soon after two guys sat down. Another soon joined, standing by the bench. They talked to each other for about 20 minutes as I just sat there until we finally struck up a conversation. Soon a 4th guy joined us. 2 were from Togo and 2 were from Nigeria. We talked for several hours.
We talked about how black people are treated in Vienna and Europe on the whole and we compared that situation to what we have heard about being black in America. Basically, in Vienna, no one sits with a black guy on the subway, and elsewhere, they are ignored, scoffed at, and are forced to confront racist graffiti all the time. One man said he was tackled and booked by 6 police officers because they mistook him for someone else.
Black people cannot get office jobs, but these were 4 (definitely 3, 1 guy didn"t talk so much) of the most intelligent people that I've encountered on the trip. We talked about the difference between welfare, unemployment, education, and housing in Europe and in America. These guys were about 5-7 years older than me, so they knew what was going on a hell of a lot more than I do.
One guy told me that he had never just sat and talked to a white man, only the occasional white woman. I was pretty shocked by that. Personally, I really dislike small talk, but I would've thought that someone would've struck up a conversation with 1 of the 4 at some point. They didn't tell me how long they had been in Vienna, but all 4 spoke fluent German and they just said "a while." When we parted, we exchanged emails, which is further testament to how desparate these guys were to talk to someone. 1 guy said, "I want to talk to other kinds of people, but they don't want to talk to me." They've tried, I saw that just sitting there.
Now I'm in Warsaw visiting a friend. It's a neat city, but my friend either yells at me or ignores me, so that's not so great. Listen, I'm a schmuck, deal with it!
2 comments:
I really had no idea that sort of racism was the prevelant in Europe.
Compared to North America, it's pretty bad over there.
My God, I mean, not even sitting by them on the bus? We got rid of that sort of thing (for the most part) decades ago.
Yeah, you're right AB, it's pretty unbelievable for white Americans who grew up in the era that I have to imagine.
It appears that racism in America is systematic and perhaps more covert than before, while racism in Vienna is out in the open, but besides not getting an office job, there are no tricks to prevent them from getting unemployment benefits or anything else like there are in America.
Also, Asa, the fact is there aren't a whole lot of minorities in Spain to hate white people. But it's a lot like America, white people drive out natives and use racist justifications to validate it.
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