Yesterday, for the second time in as many public holidays, the owners of my pharmacy were the victim of racism. Rather than express my deep shame and boiling frustration in many long paragraphs of rant, I'll just describe each of the situations;

Preface: For the public holidays, Maxwell (the boss) elected to run with the three-pharmacist, no shop assistant team; highly expensive, but also extremely effective and knowledgeable. No patient would be left waiting to 'speak with the pharmacist', because we all were. Our badges said as much. The team was me, Maxwell and 99 (his wife).

One: So, on Boxing day, an elderly lady rolls up and asks about buying a nebuliser. 99 takes the lady to show her the nebulisers, and explains our range of exactly one nebuliser and the cost of $200. The customer asks how it works, and 99 explains. 99 also tries to establish if the lady has the medicine required for the nebuliser and that she's used one before. (I don't know about you, but for most people about to shell out $200 on a nebuliser, you'd want to have all this stuff so it's not just pumping, well, nothing...). The lady becomes cranky and asks to speak with the pharmacist. 99 asserts that, yep she is the pharmacist, but Maxwell comes to her help and continues the explanation anyway. At the pause in the conversation, the lady says...

"I want to speak with an Australian. I want that man there to tell me about it." and points at me. I sold her the nebuliser.

Two: Last night, one of the more regular sufferers of 'cold and 'flu' in the area comes in for some pseudoephedrine-laced tablets. Thanks to the Guild, the Police and a few other organisations, there's a thing called Project Stop which tracks who's buying it and (probably) on-selling it, or just turning it into amphetamines by their lonesome. That's why a driver's license is required to buy the stuff. This particular bloke, we suspect, has been using a few different licenses, and he presented one that was out of date. Maxwell, quite rightly, denied supply, and was met with the response...

"Just f*#k off back to your own country, you f&*king maggot." as the guy storms out.

Racism is something that really winds me up. It encapsulates so many things that are messed up about humans; fear of the unknown, arrogance of the dominant culture, an inability to understand people that are apparently in a different situation from oneself, isolation of someone who is 'different' and basic bullying. All this stuff occurs within any society, it just seems that when there's more than one culture involved, it's multiplied in intensity.

After the first incident above, 99 said cynically, "Sure, some people still think that way. But who the hell is rude enough to say it?"

For me, Batman's oft-used line says it all;