today, in honor of St Patricks day (another lame excuse to go out and drink), I go out with a group of friends to this place called Cine Express... nice evening with nice music.. in the middle of it, someone comes in the cafe and sits on the table behind of me, I turn backwards to move my seat for him and I catch a quick glimpse of him.. a fairly dark skinned guy with dark curly hair.. typical Arab.. most probably North African (Algerian or Moroccan).. he was sitting alone, and wasn't reading or doing anything.. me, being a cynical person that doesn't trust people.. I put my foot inside my backpack strap to protect it.. you never know..

time goes by and I forget about him.. we prepare ourselves to leave, my friend looks for her backpack, and it was gone.. an it had a Macintosh laptop inside it.. a good 1500 dollars laptop.
we run and talk to the waitress who gets really stressed about it, she called the owner of the shop.. he comes in, turns out to be Egyptian.. I talk to him and i describe the guy that was sitting behind me.. he asked me.. did he look like an Arab? I nod silently.. the guy gets really pissed off.. he says: this always happens.. Arabs (mostly Algerians and Moroccans) come in and steal stuff from here.. he goes on... I am ashamed of this.. this is very frustrating.. I am an Arab myself and I have to say that it is always Arabs that do this..

I nod again.. and in an uncharacteristic move from my side, I start speaking in Arabic with him.. I tell him that I am very ashamed too.. and how it's as if we need something more to make us look any worse...

we walk outside.. me, feeling guilty for seeing my best friend almost crying for her lost work and machine, and for feeling responsible about this (for some reason).. I go with her to the police station... we file a report, and I talk to the police officer and say that I already seen the guy.. I go and describe him to the officer.. so he reads my description and he says: so he looks like an Arab? me.. not being able to say otherwise.. nod silently and leave..

so.. what did this guy do? he stole a laptop.. got himself a few hundred dollars.. and made yet another neutral Canadian girls (who used to be best friends with a Syrian guy –me-) say that she is going to develop a phobia whenever an Arabic looking guy walks next to her.. And I could not blame her... why should she think otherwise?

In short.. we really hit rock bottom… we are in a really pathetic place in the ladder of humanity.. resented from everyone for our politics, religions, traditions, and civilizations.. and what do we do? We work hard on making this worse by assuming the social identity of a common thief….

Shameful.. just shameful…