I have lived almost my entire life in the Toronto Area.  I'm not sure if it's due to luck or not but I have never really experienced blatant racism in the city.  This is not to say that I have never been in an uncomfortable situation (bad racial jokes) or received looks from employees when going shopping, but I think as a person of colour there are some things that come with the territory (like it or not).  I am not naive enough to think that Toronto is somehow different from other areas when it comes to intolerance but I always felt that people in the city kept their own stereotypes and beliefs to themselves or their friends.  In the past week there were two instances where I witnessed minorities involved in altercations with white men.  In both instances the comment 'if you don't like it then leave MY COUNTRY!’  Initially I laughed off these comments as being purely anger induced.  But after the second instance particularly I began to reflect on the comments and became increasingly upset. It made me realize that no matter how well-spoken I am and how much education I received or even the fact that I was born and raised in Canada; I will never be fully seen as a Canadian by some.  At first I was able to accept this reality, because I attributed these views to ignorance and felt that it couldn't possibly reflect the views of a larger segment of the population.  But why not? I will never know those who are of the opinion that this land belongs to 'them' and I should be somehow eternally indebted to the 'kindness' of those who 'allowed' my family to come to Canada (Ironically enough, both of my parents are from exploited former British colonies).  But what can I do? I know this view does exist but if you try to keep this in mind you will only respond by spewing the some hate-filled comments making you no better.  No solution here only more questions.