Racist is a word that gets thrown around too casually by some

I managed to make it all the way to the age of 38 without ever being called racist. It was actually in a comment on this website where a troll accused me of being racist and targeting brown people. It was an unfounded accusation.

I don't like labeling people by their ethnicity on this website and I hate that I had to write the word "brown" to describe what prompted the racist accusation.

In my opinion, there's no merit, unless if it's criminal in nature and a suspect is on the loose, in describing a person's physical or ethnic features when telling a story. I'm afraid I'll have to make some exceptions when telling this story.

Last night, on the bus, I was sitting behind a man who was watching a foreign-language tv episode on his iPhone with no headphones and at the loudest volume possible.

One lady asked him to turn it down because she could no longer hear her phone call. This made me laugh out loud because of the social etiquette fuckery I was witnessing. She had been blabbing in a ridiculously loud voice before he started watching his show. The whole bus got to listen to her tale about her car having been towed after she parked illegally at the Oshawa hospital and "that's why I have to take the ghetto bus".

At first I thought he turned on his show without headphones to 'out-volume' the lady talking on the phone, but minutes after she ended her call, he kept watching his show at a loud volume.

Of course, this resulted in the sighing, the rolling of eyes and the shaking of heads from fellow passengers.

I asked him if he'd like to borrow my headphones.

He tells me he doesn't like using headphones.

I tell him he's disturbing other passengers.

He tells me he came to Canada for the freedom of will and his will is to watch YouTube on a bus.

I said to him, "I think you mean 'free will'. Disturbing other passengers isn't free will."

He ignores me.

The lady on the phone decides to add her fifty cents to the conversation. 

"You're being rude," she says to him. Pot meet kettle, right?

He ignores her.

I put my earbuds back in and watch the rest of my True Blood episode. 

At some point, phone lady got off at a stop.

When it was my turn, I gathered up my belongings and stood up. I removed my earbuds and made my way into the aisle.

"You're racist," I heard from behind me. 

I turned to face the guy. "You and that lady were both being inconsiderate," I said to him.

"She told me to go back to my country," he says.

"I'm sorry I didn't hear her say that. I don't agree with that," I tell him.

Again, he calls me racist.

The bus driver, who is a visible minority, rolls his eyes at me. "Ignore him," he says. "No matter where people come from, there will always be people who just can't be nice."

How true. 

Truth be told, I wanted to punch the guy. But I didn't... because I don't like jail.