Post

Yesterday gave me pause. I was running a San Francisco South Asian Radical History Walking Tour yesterday, with a group of thirty-ish Brown/Muslim/SSWANA college students. We read from an 1850s SF newspaper editorial that frames South Asians and Muslims as part of the diversity of the city…

We talk about the post-9/11 backlash (post911.org), and all the hate incidents twenty five years ago. I talked about how scary that moment felt, and how important it was for me to connect with South Asian activists in the Bay during a frightening time.

We're standing in front of the location of one of those antiracist meetings. Many of the students were 18, 19, years old and had never heard someone speak clearly about that upsurge of hate before they were born. And then, as I’m speaking, this dude comes up to us…

and starts heckling us. He tells us to go home, that we don’t belong there, that this is his city. I’m literally telling a group of Brown kids about the fear of being targeted, and the multiracial coalitions we put together — and it’s literally happening right there, in front of our faces.

I’m wearing a kurta, someone's in a sari, a student's wearing a hijab. I keep going, but the dude won’t shut up. He gets louder. People try to distract and de-escalate. These POC college students—many from the Bay, some newcomers—are just watching silently, as they’re being told they don’t belong.

It ended after a few minutes. We took a breath, and finished the story. These college students aren’t stupid. They’re living through the new wave of anti-Indian, Muslim, Sikh sentiment. They know it’s not just online discourse.

But they don’t deserve to have some asshole racist rub it in their faces when all they want to do is just go on a fucking San Francisco history walking tour.

I wasn’t feeling particularly badass while getting yelled at earlier in the day, but it was a good night, and I’ll take that.