On a sunny Vancouver afternoon, he called us ‘the g-word’ and told us to go home

Social media is filled with uplifting stories of people who encounter racism and rise above it.

People of colour who wade through the mire to embrace or convert their tormentors – or, at least, distinguish themselves in the face of ignorance.

They go low, we go high.

This is not one of those stories.

The facts of my encounter with a real-life racist in Vancouver, your honour, are as follows. On July 10, a random white man called my wife and me “gooks”, an awful thing to do. He followed us and told us to “go home”. I confronted him and he backed down.