Kindly be advised that I am in
process of writing my auto-biography and the materials are exposed in this blog
are protected by 'Canadian Intellectual Property Office'. It means that these
disclosed materials cannot be duplicated by others. It is my intellectual
property.
Why No White Person
Sits Beside Me on the West Coast Express?
There are two types of research
methods, one is qualitative method and there is a quantitative method. The
qualitative method is always under scrutiny because it does not produce numbers
to support its claim. It is involved in interviewing people or observing people
in a particular social setting. It gets rejected by scholars that there is a
bias in this research. Academic field heavily rely on quantitative method. The
research always produces numbers and there is a claim that it yields solid
result. Now, there is a system of 'Randomized Controlled Trials’[1],
it is known as gold standard. It is intended to produce incredible result by
means of quantitative research method. There are scholars that they deem the
above research method as hard science. In my view, it is a false statement that
the qualitative method does not yield credible evidence. In fact, so called
hard science discoveries were mostly based by accident like Dr. Alexander
Fleming, who discovered penicillin by accident and there are countless
scientific discoveries by accident. Here comes my story that I too made a
discovery about hidden racism in Canada by accident. One day, I was, on West Coast Express,
commuting from XXX to XXX. I noticed people who were sitting beside me, they
were not European origin. Their human appearances did not resemble to white
Europeans. It did not bother me that I was sitting beside other race groups
that they were not white. I was puzzled by this social phenomenon. I decided to
take one more step forward and test my hypothesis that white people did not
want to sit on a same table as with me on the West Coast Express. On my way back from XXX to XXX, it was the
same case, I noticed white people did not want to sit beside me, and they did
not like sit beside other ethnic peoples. They like to sit beside other white
people. The train was racially segregated. It reminded me of time, when I was
residing in Toronto that how racism was wide spread. The flashback took me to
the time, when, one day, I went to a hair salon to have a hair cut. The lady
was cutting my hair asked me; what was my background? I told her “Iran”. She asked
me if I watched the movie “Not without My Daughter”. I told her “no”.
She began to ridicule me in front of others that Iranian men were abusive
toward their wives, and I really feared for my safety, at this time, that this
woman may cause physical harm on me; she was yelling and screaming at me that
why Iranian men were hitting their wives? They were other patrons too who were
looking at me. I knew that she envisaged me as a bad guy to these patrons.
Once, she finished with her job, I paid her, and rushed out of the store and
never went back there.
I was not entirely satisfied with
my qualitative research method that racial segregation was taking place on the
West Coast Express. I decided to run another test. I let a week passed by, and
made sure I would use different time frame and different spot on the train in
order to avoid bias in my research. Once again, it yielded same result. People
were sitting beside each other base on their race and not sitting beside each
other randomly. I was very shocked by my founding. I cannot remember it exactly
what day. There was one occasion that I
was on the West Coast Express and sitting on the train, I was reading my book.
A young lady with Anglo appearance came to the table that I was using. I
stopped reading my book and just had a short glance at her who she was. All of
sudden she left her seat. It reminded me of time, when I was in Toronto, I
asked a girl to go out with me and she told me, she would not because I was a
Muslim person and she watched the movie “Not without My Daughter”. I was
really shocked by whole event. How does a movie relate to me? Should I start judging
these people that they were natural born killers because they killed native
people and stole their lands from them? I cannot do that. It is ethically and
morally wrong.
I found freedom in higher
education. The more I read books, the more I understood about troubles of my
life. One day, I was at the sociology class and instructor was talking about
Emile Durkheim's concept of oneness. This instructor was explaining that how
external forces were shaping human behaviors, and there is concept of oneness
that we try to act like each other not be shined in society. I asked her, would
these people accept me for who I am? She told me “no”. She was right;
particularly this was a homogenous society. They all came from same background,
and there was zero tolerance toward others. On the surface appeared calm.
However, there was turmoil from inside. People have compared me to Islamic
laws, and made mockery of my accent. It left a deep pain in my heart. The pain
was so deep that last time, I was with my doctor, and was talking about my feelings;
it brought me down to my knees. How can I be related to Islamic laws, when I
have been living in Canada since 1991? How can I stop my accent?
In short sentence, I cannot
change my ascribed status, I was born with it. I also cannot change people the
way they are. I only can hold on Canada's Constitutional Rights – section 27
that we live in a multicultural society. I need to say that not everyone is as
shallow minded as the people that I encountered in my life. I also met handful
of fine individuals that they were liberal minded. They treated me with respect
and dignity and met some individuals that they were White Anglo Saxon
Protestant (W.A.S.P) on the West Coast Express, they spoke with me and we had a
good conversation. They knew that I was a human being with feelings and
thoughts. How do you plan to leave your imprint on others?
[1] Donaldson, Stewart, Christian A
Christie. “What Counts as Credible Evidence in Applied Research and Evaluation
Practice?”. N.p.: Sage, 2009.Print.
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