i am a victim of discrimination -- and i want some money

During my time at the Yellowknifer, I wrote enough stories about the Human Rights Commission -- adjudication hearings, rulings, the complaints process, etc. -- to get a decent enough handle on what counts as discrimination, these days.

Now I've already described one experience I've had in Montreal that made me want to call up my local Human Rights Commission to see what kind of case I had, when I was aghast while searching for an apartment to see landlords and leaseholders were looking for all sorts of specific people to rent out a room to. Requests ranged from students to vegans to people who do dishes and people able to pay the rent.

What nerve!

Ultimately, I decided against the complaint, as I found an indiscriminate place, with roommates willing to overlook all those outrageous characteristics. (And I've still provided rent, which proves how good a guy I am and how sick it is that anyone could ever discriminate against me.)

But recent events have led me to once again consider filing a human rights complaint against certain people, whom I seem to encounter every day and whom I believe act discriminately toward me on each occasion.

It happens without exception outside the Berri-UQAM metro station in Centre-Ville, whether it's early in the morning before the sun is up, or late in the day, when the metro is minutes from closing up shop.

Whenever I walk into the entrance lobby on St. Catherine and Rue Berri, one of the many drug pushers walks up to me and asks me if I need anything.

Seems harmless, you're thinking? How is that discrimination? Well, I'll tell you. The riff-raff never asks the person in front of me. They will walk right past the old lady with a cane or small child with a backpack like they aren't even there and they'll ask me if I'm good. I am obviously appalled. If I had a monocle, I'd take it out of my eye in disgust and ash my cigarette (being held, of course, in one of those foot-long holders) and say "My word."

When I get inside the lobby, just to be sure I've been singled out, I'll look back outside, and sure enough they'll leave a blind person with a seeing-eye dog be.

It's fucking discrimination, man!

I'm being profiled. It's terrible. It's affecting my livelihood and my reputation.

Because of this persistent prejudice, I look around self-consciously as I approach the station every day and am traumatized by what people must think of me when they see these dudes speak with me. I lay in anguish every night, picturing my next interaction with these dealers, who line up outside the metro station like a red-rover line that I have to smash through to get home, and fear that those around must be labeling me a drug fiend when I share two words with these sordid folk. I have no chance at a political career anymore. Pretty girls just shake their heads in disgust when they walk by. Parents grab their kids by their hands and pull them closer and tell them not to wind up like that guy, looking at me with shame.

I take this shame home with me.

Why do they come to me? Is it my unshaven face? Is it my shoes in disrepair? Is it the broken zippers or rip in the jeans?

In any case, I'm feeling a diminished sense of self-esteem and self-worth, as I am being judged to be in need of what these guys are selling. I don't see them asking the successful suits or the well-to-do students, who also pour into the building en masse, all the time. It's just me, it seems.

My quality of life is being adversely affected.

And you know what? I want some loss of dignity money, dang-nabbit! I think I deserve it.

I think next time one of these dudes asks me if I need something, I'll say "Yes, I do. I need to file a human rights complaint against you and collect some of that government scrilla."

Because we all know if there is anything that restores dignity, it's a stuffed wallet.