[hymnsfm]

I'm a white middle aged man who lives in Canada. Late one night I went to a nearby gas station to pick up some snacks. The attendant, a young man of Pakistani origin, gave me a friendly greeting which I returned.

A moment later a woman in her mid-twenties entered and immediately started criticising the attendant. She asked where something was and he calmly walked over and pointed to it, but she didn't seem to care. She just berated him more.

That's when I clued-in to her unprovoked hostility. I told her she was extremely rude and to leave. She left without buying anything.

I paid for my snacks and apologized to him for her behaviour. He looked completely deflated from the experience and said nothing. I left the gas station feeling sad and stunned at what I just witnessed first-hand.

[traykuh]

Just out of curiosity, may I ask how you apologized to him?

[hymnsfm]

I told him I was sorry he had to put up with her behaviour. What I didn't say, but implied, was I was sorry he was treated like a lesser person for no other reason he looked different and was possibly an immigrant.

On an even deeper unconscious level, I was probably apologising on behalf of most Canadians who accept (if not embrace) people of racial and cultural diversity.

The reason he didn't respond wasn't because of something I said. We were both kind of gobsmacked at what happened.