I was visiting a night club in Helsinki. Everything was fine, until I decided to visit the toilet. These were gender neutral toilets, and there was a big line. I got in the line, but the lady infront of me starting pointing her palm at me, and saying nope. This is not for you. I replied, this is gender neutral. I can be here. She kept repeating that. Then after a back and forth of 3-4 times. she was like yeah ok. She then asked my name. I replied. But she said, no. Its Aladdin. And starting laughing. I was taken back by that. She realized she had said something racist so she acknowledged that herself. But I didn’t feel good so I left the line. My mood was immediately down. I left the club after that. and I kept thinking about it for days. These small day to day wounds can pile up, and really have an effect on you in the long term. Its death by a thousand cuts.

I was in a mini-schanuzer dog group in Facebook. Been active member sharing pictures and stories of our dog occasionally. I once shared a story about a dog of same breed looking for a home- and was instantly blocked. I reached out to the 4x admins, none of them responded. Then my Finnish spouse messaged the admins and got a response. I was reprimanded for “selling” or “advertising” a dog and it was against the group rules, and also I posted in English so it looked like spam. Makes sense?

I was once buying an armchair on facebook marketplace. The woman selling it asked me to bring my passport with me if I wanted to pick it up from her place. Huh?

I used to live in Kalasatama. One day I went looking for a specific tea from the local K-market right after work and on my way to home. I quickly scanned the tea section and couldn’t spot it so I started leaving the shop. The owner of the shop briskly stopped the queue at the counter and rushed to me to frisk my handbag. This was around 2018-19 or so. I feel there were very few immigrants in that neighbourhood and feel I was stopped because of distrust in my immigrant background / looks?

I performed well at work, and my direct supervisor recommended me for promotion several times. But each time, my superior rejected my application. Yes, I don’t speak Finnish; then, the official language of our company is English; finally, our CEO doesn’t speak Finnish either.

Actually I’m not so sure if it’s discrimination or I’m just too sensetive, maybe it’s like microdiscrimination. One day, I went to Kontti in Lappeenranta, when I was about to pay, the casher guy suddenly put away his smile and didn’t say “moi” to me. I still said “moi” “kiitos” and “moi moi” to him but he didn’t have any response – just gave me the receipt. But he chatted in smile with the last customer 🙁

I was visiting the eye department of the Helsinki Hospital (HUS) for an eye examination. I kindly asked the nurse if we can speak English. She immediately showed me that she was not happy with this and she said “If you cannot speak Finnish, you can go back to your country.”. I stayed silent and calm because I had to get the eye examination done. It was a very uncomfortable 30 minutes. I tried to talk as little as possible and I was afraid that she would make other racist comments. I felt very sad. I reported this incidence to HUS but I did not hear back.

After months struggling with a healthcare issue and being bounced like a basketball from (clueless) doctor to doctor, I am now at the end of my tether. I’ve had enough of being treated like a second-rate citizen, being talked at rather than to and not being listened to. I’m fed up with being patronised and spoken to like as if I were an uneducated simpleton. I’m sick and tired of being told the source of the pain isn’t the injury detected using the MRI; which I had to pay for myself because even that I was refused. I’m disgusted with the way doctors treat severe pain as if it were a common cold that can simply be sorted with a few paracetamol tablets. I’m beyond annoyed at being told that exercise to strengthen the muscles is the answer to all evils even after I’ve explained for the untempth time that most days I can barely even walk let alone exercise. And don’t even get me started on ‘sometimes the brain sends pain signals to the body that are difficult to explain’ thinly veiled type of BS of ‘it’s all in your head’ and ‘if you weren’t so hysterical’ followed by the talk of how antidepressants have proven very effective in such cases.