Adventures in Anti-Semitism at Work: Part 2

Is this a bad dream?  When will it end?

So after my supervisor harassed me about my ethnicity for almost an entire shift, I got to have a break; my offending supervisor was out.  I had a day to think about how I wanted to handle things.  However the people that I had planned to talk to, my team leader and the HR person, were both off today.  My shift was going well, even when the person I was trying to avoid came up to me to shake my hand.  I am pretty sure she knew something was up because I am a very firm handshaker.  Today I barely returned her shake and she held on for awhile as if trying to resuscitate my hand.  For her- my hand has a DNR order.  

I decided to just keep my mouth closed unless she said something to me or asked me about my race again.  I did not speak to her or look at her if I did not need to.  I could tell that she tried to initiate conversation with me about produce and cooking, and she isn’t the type of person that participates in small talk.  I am glad she knows that I am not playing around.

One of my other supes (there are 8 total- and yes, that is insane), Let’s call her S, was returning from helping a customer and she looked wilted and devastated.  Customer service is a brutal business, y’all.  We often get treated poorly by customers and we just have to take it. 

Me:  Oh no.  What happened?

S:  I have never been so disrespected in my life.

Me: Crap.  What happened?

S:  She just kept saying to me, “Listen to what I am saying to you.  No! You are not listening to my words.  Do you hear what I am saying?”  She treated me like I am stupid and beneath her.

Me: I am so sorry dear, I know you guys get all the rudeness at the desk.  People are mean to me sometimes, but they spew all their garbage at you.

S: Yeah, and it was one of these types of customers [as she said ‘these’ she hovered her hand over the boxes that she had in her hand.  I work in a grocery store so it is not a mystery that she was holding food.  I just had not noticed what kind of food she was holding- because everyone is holding boxes of food at our store.  She was holding 2 boxes of matzo.]

I cannot remember what I did when she said that, but I know I thought, “AGIAN?!?  Are they trying to kill me?”  S tried to recover.

S:  You aren’t one of these are you? [She hovered her hand over the box again as if she was asking me if I was matzo, or if I was the sort of person that eats matzo.  But I knew what S was really getting at.  She was asking me if I was Jewish.]

Me: No.  But I wish I was. [I have a tattoo in Hebrew clearly visible on my wrist and there are Jewish folks in our department.  I am dizzy with disbelief]

S: I know there are a lot of good ones.  But there are also bad ones, too [insert her fumbling story trying to justify what she just said.]

My heart pounded as I returned to work and I all I could think about was how I have only worked at this place for 3 weeks and my ears have been on the receiving end of a lot of oppressive talk.  I was upset with myself for not being more forthcoming with my supe when she was harassing me.  So I decided that I would tell S that what she said really bothered me.  

S and I spoke and she knew right away that she had offended me.  She said my facial expression dropped as she was speaking (for years people have been calling me out about my face revealing my every thought- so you would think that my co-workers know when I am offended by their words).  She apologized and said she knew better.  She knew better because people say horrible things to her.  S is a white South African.  There are a lot of things we can all judge a white South African person for.  S also gets shit for not being a Black African.  It is complicated, right?  You would think (I would think) she knew better.  I also vaguely told her that someone was asking me my race repeatedly and that that was illegal.  She agreed and was shocked to hear about that happening to me.  She even said, “That IS illegal.”  So, yeah- I am going to have to talk to my department head about this.  Snarfblat.  

I was speaking to a dear friend of mine about making a social experiment of myself and how that backfired in a really bad way.  She was encouraging me to tell my team leader about the harassment.  I confessed to her a fear that stops many of us from telling our stories- I am afraid of being THAT person.  And then she said this to me:

But you are that person.  You are sensitive about race.  And that isn’t a bad thing.

She is right.  I am that person.  It is ok that I am that person.  Someone has to be.  Someone has to see these things and remember that they are important.  I did not intentionally pray about this, but I did say in my head, “Oh my God!?  Why the heck does this keep happening to me?  Why am I the one seeing this?  It is so ridiculous...it doesn’t even seem real.”  

I wonder if this 3rd thing happened to me because it has me so tired and so done that I have no choice but to speak with my team leader about E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.  I hope he is ready for an ear full.  I am afraid of not being voted on as a team member, but I also don’t think my workplace wants to have a person with a solid review record not getting officially hired because they complained about racism.  That wouldn’t look good for them.  So I am reminding myself to be courageous.

"What are you?": The question that I cannot seem to handle.

     I really do not mean to be melodramatic, but I have to tell you that I am done with almost everyone.  For the remainder of Lent I want to give up stupid people.

     Last week I had to tell my boss of two weeks that one of my superiors said a really terrible thing.  When this person said the offensive thing they said, I thought, “what fresh hell is this?  I left my old job so I could work in a safe and respectful environment and you had to go and be racist right away?!”  This is what happened at work last week.

Me: Working customer service is hard.

Cool supervisor: Oh yeah, I have some stories.

[Witty banter that is hilarious.  It is nice to let off steam.]

Me: When people do not make a 10 cent donation, I judge them harshly.

Cool supervisor:  Yeah.  At my old store people would walk all the way to the customer service desk to get their dime back.

Me: That is just insane.

Cool Supervisor:  Yeah.  And I hate to say it but this area is really-

Me:  Wealthy!  The houses are HUGE around here!

Cool Supervisor:  No.  I was gonna say that this area is super Jewish.

Me:  [cricket noises and rapid eye blinking that in morse code reads “are you fucking kidding me right now?”]

Formerly Cool Supervisor that is horrendously racist: I know that sounds bad but I have two Jewish friends that are dating.  Going out to eat with them and splitting the check is ridiculous!

Me: [Holy God.  She is digging the hole deeper.]

Currently horrendously Racist supervisor: I mean one will say to the other, “I will give you 50 cents if you let me have a bite of your sandwich.”  Isn’t that insane?

Me: [Why does this shit happen to me?  I am so tired.]

My face at work today.

     My supervisor thought she was a good person because she would donate a dime or buy her friend dinner- all while being a horrendous and blatant racist.  And therein lies the problem.  She thinks she is morally superior while still being trapped inside of these thoughts that place value judgements on entire groups of people.  

     I did not say anything to her because I was shocked, tired, and did I mention that I am done hearing people say stuff like this?  I had a fight in my head that made me feel guilty for not saying anything to her.  Ugh.  I am beneath her and I am new and these folks have to vote on me in 2 months so I can officially be hired.  I need this job and if I tell someone, there is a good chance she will know I said something.  I ended up telling my big boss and he was super awesome about it.  He made me feel listened to and he was disappointed because this racist person is in leadership.  Unlike my last job, I was reassured that it would be handled in an anonymous way that reminded folks to be mindful of the diverse and professional environment that we work in.

     Hold on to your underpants because I am going to tell you about what just happened to me at work today.  

     The nature of my ethnicity is, for some godawful reason (rather- the reason is historical and obvious, but I am completely over it), a topic that interests almost everyone.  I almost thought I was out of the dark at my new job.  I have worked there for almost four whole weeks and no one has come up to me and said, “what are you?”  I think part of that is because we don’t have a lot of down time to be social and exchange pleasantries.  But today, as I was with a customer, one of the big supervisors of my department came up to me and dropped the bomb.  

Black female supervisor who I think should know better: What are you?

Me: Hmm. [frown]

Black female supervisor who doesn’t know better: You know- like what is your ethnicity?

Me: . . . what do you think?

Black female supervisor who I lost all respect for: Well we thought you are a mix of Latino and Black.

Me: [sweet god, she said “we.”  These assholes have discussed it.] Well- I am not Latino. [I love to tell people this because it really confuses them.]

     I continued to do my job (because I was at work and that is what I am supposed to do) and for the next two hours she kept randomly coming up to me and listing ethnicities.  I wanted to try a new approach to handling this question because I am so sick of being asked.  But I am suddenly dreading the fact that I have made myself a social guinea pig.  Fuck me.  I would be with a customer and I would hear yelled to me, “Native American?!”  I shook my head.  I was stacking up baskets and I heard, “Grecian?!”  I was hoping that she would drop it.  Then the other floor supervisor came up to me, “Armenian?”  

     Now two people were asking me.  Then my supervisor goes up to a co-worker and starts talking about it.  She thought it was light hearted, but I wanted to hide.  I said nothing.  All three of these women made about 15 guesses over the span of 3 hours.  Just when I had forgotten about it, I would get another question.  At the end of my shift, my supervisor came up to me and said, “Jewish?”  

     I know that I am ethnically ambiguous.  I know that in this country, in this world, I am can only go so far on my brain and my wit and my grit.  I know that I am probably one of the smartest people in my work place.  I am also a very hard worker.  I come from a long line of workaholics.  I am also fucking brilliant, folks.  I don’t shout it out often, but I am intelligent and I will wreck the curve in a hot minute- do not tempt me.  In my first lab class in college we had to pick partners and I dreaded it.  All I could think was, ‘I need to find someone nearly as smart as me because I do not want some idiot that I have to drag around for the semester.”  I am ruthless.  

But my skin is not white.  

     I do not just get to float on by, undisturbed with my white skin.  No, I have to tell people my race so they can figure me out.  My brain does not mean as much, it does not weigh as much, as white brains.  My work will never speak for itself.  It is hard to be reminded of the fact that I have to prove myself; I will always have to show people my papers.  I want to tell you that I have gotten used to it.  I want to get used to it.  I have very thick skin.  But this thing chases after me and I keep running as fast as I can, hoping that I can outrun it.  It gets me every time.  

     What makes it worse is that the three people who harassed me about my race today are Women of Color.  I wanna get up in their faces and say, "You should know better.  The same way you want to categorize me is the same sort of thing that boxes you in and allows people to label and limit you.  Way to oppress all of us.  Thanks so much."  

     I also want to blame myself for what happened today.  If I would have just told her, like I usually do, I could have avoided this.  But that small voice inside my head, the same one that didn’t want an idiot for a lab partner, knows that this was not my fault.  At one point I spoke up to my supervisor.

Me: I am sure this is illegal.  You can’t ask me this.

Black female supervisor who I lost all respect for: It’s not illegal.

Me: It is if you are only asking me and singling me out and making me uncomfortable.

Black female supervisor who I lost all respect for: I know everyone else’s race, though.

     She handled this with smiles and laughs.  

     The sad thing is- I just told my department boss about what happened with my other supervisor last week.  I do not want to be THAT person.  I do not want my voice and my complaint to be watered down because I am complaining to my boss again.  This fucking sucks.

     Right now, I know that the right thing to do is to tell.  I always want everyone to tell.  We always need to tell.  We always need to hold people accountable.  But I cannot lie.  I don’t want to.  I am too tired.  I am afraid of being that person.  I want to curl up inside of myself and just talk to the few people at work who (I think and hope) are gonna leave me alone about my race.  I feel like I am betraying myself and so many other people by staying silent.   

I am tired.

I am so confused.

I am sick of being in awkward work situations.

I don’t want to have to be the one who speaks up, and teaches people how to act, and does the right thing.

     If I don’t tell, I will not respect myself and I don’t think you should respect me either.  If I do tell, I am going to be afraid and anxious all the time.  

I feel ubiquitously fucked.