Column: How did he know?

I don’t know which stories are hardest to tell. The ones that affect me. The ones that affect my parents. Or the ones that affect my children. Maybe this particular story has stayed with me because it’s so mild. So ordinary. And at the same time so revealing.

As a person with an immigrant background, and as someone whose body visibly does not carry whiteness, the stories of Swedish racism are many. They are not only mine, but also belong to my parents, my brother, my friends, and my children. They range from physical violence to those everyday comments that are so easily dismissed as misunderstandings, stress, or a bad mood.

My youngest daughter and I—she was four at the time—were crossing a crosswalk after picking her up from preschool. She was tired in that way small children are when the day has been long. Short steps. Uneven pace. In the middle of the crosswalk she dropped her sweater. She stopped, turned around, picked it up. Fumbled a bit. Just like children do.

A car was waiting at the crosswalk. The man in the car grew impatient. He rolled down the window and shouted irritably, “Hurry up, and by the way: go home!”

I felt my body tense immediately. That familiar shift. From everyday mode to alertness. I had to find a way to defuse the already aggressive situation, with a car revving its engine while we stood on the white lines that are supposed to be a safe place from cars. I managed to think of a response and said calmly, “Easy now, we’re on our way. We’re coming from preschool. We actually live just across the park there.”

The man said nothing more. The window went up. The car sped off. We continued across the street. That’s when my daughter looked up at me. She looked both worried and impressed, as if she had just witnessed something important. In a completely serious voice she asked, “How did the man know we were going home?”

I stopped. Because in her question there was no suspicion. No anger. No fear. Just a child trying to understand the world based on what had just happened. A grown man had been angry. He had told us to hurry. He had told us to go home. And he had been right. How did he know?

That’s often how racism works. Not through blatant acts of violence. But through assumptions presented as self-evident truths. Through certain bodies always already being seen as on their way somewhere else. Always a bit in the way. Always viewed with suspicion. Never fully welcome, always conditionally.

Like my mom being assumed to be studying Swedish for immigrants and not for beginners. Like me being suspected of being an aggressive father. Like being asked where I’m really from, even after I’ve already answered. Like being told to speak Swedish so everyone can understand. Like my competence being questioned until it’s proven. Like being told I couldn’t get the highest grades in high school because no ethnic Swedes get them. Like always representing more than just myself, while others are allowed to be individuals. Like my body, identity, and presence having to be explained, defended, and earned.

What did I answer my four-year-old child? I said something about how the man didn’t really know. That he was just stressed and said something. That adults sometimes say strange things. But I already knew then that answer wouldn’t last a lifetime. Because it wasn’t about stress. And my daughter hadn’t misunderstood. It was the man who had understood exactly who he was speaking to.

And I still wonder what stays with a child in a moment like that. The man’s voice. My calm tone. Or that first realization that some people think they know where you belong, long before you yourself have even had the chance to choose a path.

Ten years later, with language for the pain of colonialism and the knowledge to recognize racism’s many faces, my daughter says she feels sorry for those who can’t see the greatness of having a multicultural background.

I hear her and feel both proud and humbled. Because her way of understanding the world didn’t come by itself. It could have gone in other directions. Bitterness, adaptation, and silence. It reminds me how crucial it is that the adults around children don’t let everyday racism go unchallenged, but instead provide language, context, and counter-narratives.

Racism isn’t something that only happens in extreme situations. It exists in everyday life. In traffic. In school. In the workplace. In passing. And that’s why antiracism isn’t just an opinion. It’s a responsibility. Toward our children. Toward their questions. And toward the world they’re forced to interpret far earlier than they ever should have to.

Marco Vega, Director of Operations for PLU and MVP Arbetsplats at MÄN