Why do you hate me?

I debated about sharing this on my blog, but eventually realized that it needed to be addressed.

A couple days ago, I was walking in my neighborhood when a school bus drove past me. A teenage boy rolled down his window and shouted at me, "Go back to India, c-nt!"

Already feeling crappy, my hurt feelings and shock took a back seat to my anger. I chased the school bus down and jumped on board. I got the name of the kid from the bus driver and found out what school he attended. When I got home, I called the school bus company and the high school principal.

Yesterday, I met with the assistant principal of the high school. They are going to review the bus video and then suspend the student.

I'm glad I nailed the punk, but I'm still bothered by the incident.

I'm pretending not to be. I brushed it off to Rian (who was there when it happened). I never even told my parents because I didn't think it was worth it.

But it does bother me a lot. This kid, without knowing anything about me, felt hatred towards me because of the color of my skin. It is the first time in my life I have been the victim of a racist attack of any kind.

He has no idea that I can't "move back" to a country I have never been to. He has no idea that I've never even been outside the United States at all. He has no idea I'm not even fully Indian. He has no idea I don't know any language other than English. He doesn't care either. He sees a brown person and believes what he wants.

But the attack wasn't personal. It wasn't against one person. It was against an entire nation. It makes me wonder why this kid hates Indians so much. Did his dad lose his job to an Indian? Did an Indian kid make fun of him earlier in life? Does he hate Indian food? Or maybe he simply hates immigrants in general and assumed I was one of them?

If it's the immigrant card, then he's an idiot. The United States is a country that is built on immigrants. So unless that kid is a full-blooded Native American, he hates his own kind. He hates his great-great-whatever grandparents who came over on the Mayflower (or, most likely, jumped ship here from various European countries less than 200 years ago). Way to be a traitor to your ancestors, dipshit.

But, of course, that is a theory and I will most likely never know the reason behind the attack. Who knows why people are racist? Who knows why they are sexist? Who knows why they are homophobes? We've come a long way in this world, regarding those areas, but we still have a long way to go.

Let's hope every new generation gets a little more tolerant, and a lot less ignorant.