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.
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