Black and an aspie. I'm so screwed.

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Do it, I grew up in south alabama, so I know all about the rascist BS, I appear white, so never had troubles, but am a true american mutt, got a lil bit of everything in me. It may not help, but if you dont try, it surely wont, the only way they will ever open their eyes is if enough people stand up to them, and who knows, the person who recieves your complaint may be someone who cares and will do something, you never know unless you try, God Bless,

Trace

Dearest Neves!
mixedfolks.com is a website for US but many are NT and you can tell right away. Some of them are "me, me, me" folks BUT not when it comes to being mixed-race, they can be EVER so compassionate. I feel that you put too much emphasis on the treatment of you and others by a total stranger. I hope that there was no personal info on that card that you showed him because he wanted to see it twice. In the case with public service people, you need to get their bus number and time of day and report them BUT don't "say" you're going to do it. Be polite no matter what and "get'em" on the sly. Maybe their supervisor will do something, maybe they won't. Sometimes, it's just best to wait for the next bus unless you're in a high-crime neighborhood. A lot of public servants see young people getting an education and they feel slighted by life itself and that driving a bus is all that they'll do till the day they die.
They get jealous and resentful and irritate in anyway that they can. They want to give you a hard time especially if you are or look foreign. They think that foreign people have money and feel as though that are better and are looking down on them. You just wanted to catch a daggoned bus and this driver made a federal case of it. But driving a bus is ALL they do. It's their life and they are trying to gain some control over it by bullying the passengers. It's not always racial. It's personal. NEVER tell a driver this!! ! Don't ever try to psychoanalyze a stranger to their face, they'll beat you up. But it is true, first they realize that they will never amount to much, they go into denial by bullying, then they eventually stop, they get depressed and then they just accept it. Some just quit, get fired, or attacked by a passenger.
Don't take it personally. Just report it. Sometimes, believe or not, they have weird rules to follow. Here's an example: A bus driver was on break. I wanted to board the bus because I was freezing cold. I wanted to sit down and get warm. He would NOT open the door. After his break was over, he explained to me that that was a company rule. He wasn't allowed to let me on during his sandwich break. Then I started to think: What if he did let me on, turned off the light and decided to rape me? Bus drivers are just regular people - some are possibly criminal, etc... Don't challenge the individual person, complain to the company.

Set race and age and gender aside, it doesn't matter, the bus driver had no reason to act the way he was. I'd just report it, generally I don't like to but he has no reason to treat people in the manner he is.

There are a lot of people who are racist, and having AS dosen't help any either. Unfortunately, I'm white and have AS so I don't know how you feel, but I'm sorry. Having AS can be very tough on not only you but others around you because they don't know how to cope with you. I've had my fair share of people who look at me funny. But I just ignore it. People who are like that just can't accept the fact that people are different and you must accept them for who they are. But I'm rambling. My point is, don't let them hurt you. Once again, I'm sorry.

I actually used to be a bus driver!! !
But I never had any complaints about me, infact I had 2 letters of commendation and also a phoncall from a customer because I ALWAYS tried to be as nice to people as I could, just because I also thought that in-general bus drivers were grumpy so-and-so's! I remember one Christmas Eve I was working till midnight, and the company were'nt paying us any overtime so I actually took the bus off-route so I could drop my passengers at their front doors! I'd have gotten fired if they'd ever found out but it was pouring rain and freezing cold that night!

Anyway, I can tell you that any complaints are taken seriously and followed-up.....generally what happens is, you make a complaint about an incident, give the date and time and journey, and from that they will be able to track down the specific driver as records are kept of who drives what route/bus on any given day.

You should receive a letter from the company with a wholehearted apology, you may even be given some free travel passes, as for the driver, he will probably be reprimanded for his behaviour, this will also go on his record so he would do well to mind how he acts in the future.

I don't see it as complaining, and it certainly won't be seen as playing the race card, racism is illegal and they have a legal duty to uphold that, the way that driver spoke to you is absolutely disgusting, and displays a shallow and biggoted mentality, despite that I think you dealt with the situation very well!

wow. You're not the idiot. Seriously.

Hi Neves,

I hope you are feeling better about that gross incident with that tiny-brained bus driver. I am brown and of mixed heritage, and I also sometimes feel that my color gets me into almost as much trouble as the AS.

But when confronted with racism, we have to remember that is THEIR ignorance and lack of intelligence, not OUR shortcoming as lovely brown girls. (I say lovely to remind myself that brown does not equal ugly!!)

We just have to keep being ourselves, and let our intelligence and talents prove the racists as wrong as we know them to be.

Big non-confining hugs!