My wife has been taking the bus to the city, for her English class, for quite some time now.

She has been telling me how old Italian farts, dressed in leather and driving expensive German cars, keep stopping, on an almost daily basis, to offer her a ride.

One may ask me at this point: "but what is wrong with being nice?" Well, what is wrong becomes quite apparent when one considers that they never stop to offer rides to white ladies that are also alone and waiting for the bus. The same racist mentality that is heavily predisposed to make certain assumptions about the black male is also predisposed to make certain analogous assumptions about the black female.

Lica (my wife) has been seriously harassed by this very common type of typically elder Italian "gentleman" at least twice. Once, while jogging just 1 Km away from our house and the other time at the bus stop, right outside the church of our little village, at about 10am in the morning. In the second case she almost called me using her mobile (I was at work) as the guy would not leave her alone (he kept pressing her to accept his offer of a ride).

I can't help but fantasize about what I would do if I was there. Oh, the pleasure...

Technorati : Harassment, Italy, Racism