No seriously, NPR posted a story this morning about how a Swiss sales clerk refused to show Oprah a $38,000 handbag. I guess she just didn't recognize Oprah. Which is pretty amazing, because I don't think there is a human being on the planet that doesn't know who the hell Oprah is. Even sherpas in Tibet and sheep-herders in Syria know who OPRAH is. How sad, I'm sure the sales lady just didn't recognize her through all that blackness.
Sigh.
NPR wants to know what you think about racial profiling in stores. They want you to put it in their comments. But like all stories anywhere that have anything to do with racism, people are getting ugly. The comments section is looking like the West Bank right now. Besides, what I have to say on the subject is too long for any comments section . . .
I KNOW racial profiling exists in retail stores, and it's so intrinsic in some people, they have no idea they are being big ole racist assholes when they do it. How do I know? Well pull up a chair, I got some good ole boy story tellin' to be tellin' ya folks . . .
Like most young ladies, I worked retail in my younger years. I worked in a variety of stores, but spent my longest stint in retail at a punk rock store in Hermosa Beach called Restyle Too. Restyle was owned by two OG punks from Europe. We were very strict security wise, and we did NOT tolerate any shoplifters. We also did not tolerate ANY racism. This wasn't a chain store, every item contributed to their livelihood, which of course trickled down to MY livelihood. So I got very good about watching people and any possibility of a shoplifting occurring. Plus I have a strong natural instinct for people, and could practically sense when someone walked in with bad intentions. And of all the people that I caught shoplifting?
Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Were. White.
Not that people of all races don't steal. They do. Just in my experience in retail, I've only collared white folks.
So anyway, fast forward a few years, and I was working for a friend of mine, a great retail manager, in a chain-store in the mall. It was sort of a strange place for me to be working because at the time I topped out at a size 8, and this was a high-end plus-sizes store. Not that thinner folks can't work at larger folks stores, it just left me with little to choose from on my employee discount. I did buy a lot of jewelry. I also took a lot of abuse for my "skinny ass" and was asked numerous times "why in the hell do you even work here?". Because not only was not I in their SIZE demographic, I was also gothabillied-the-hell-out. Ahhh retail, the public can be so much fun! But the customers were right, it was a strange place for me to be working.
Me, then.
My coworkers were all pretty swell. We had a lot of giggles and not much back-biting or gossiping. Until one day, one fateful day . . . one of them popped off with some seriously degrading racial profiling, and I went OFF. Spastic bombastic, like. And I hope that I shamed that girl so hard, she will never think such crazy-ass-racist thoughts again. . .
It was late in the evening, we were getting ready to close. It was just this lady, I'll call "Winona" and I working. A very well dressed and well made-up black woman had come into the store. I had smiled at her, asked if she needed any help or if she was looking for anything in particular. She had assured me she was just browsing, so I went behind the counter and started working on closing down one of the registers. Winona walked past me and whispered "keep an eye on that one, she might be here to shoplift."
Wait, WHAT?
I looked up to see this lady doing what any other lady in the whole world does when they're shopping: checking out clothes and looking for her size. Browsing, just like she said she was going to do. There was absolutely NOTHING to indicate this woman was up to any bad intention, at all. I couldn't understand why Winona would think she was there to shoplift, and so I asked her . . . "why would you think she's going to steal anything? She doesn't have the vibe at all". Well here's Winona giving me "the look" -- you know the one. The white person-to-white person LOOK. The one that says "well they are not like US, are they?". The one that I thankfully had missed out on my whole life because my parents aren't racist assholes. The look I didn't come to even know as "the look" until my mom began dating, then moved in with. a black man. When we'd all go out as a family, my mom, her man, my black step-sister, and me. THAT is when I came to know "the look". Because my mom and Bob suffered it far too often. Not to mention some of the ugliest, nastiest, cruelest racist jabs said right out loud and proud when we were I don't know, just trying to enjoy a prime rib dinner, or something. It was a horrifying experience for me. Because I was really trying to be a teenage drama queen with my parents, and I couldn't because the general public were outshining me in angst and evil. I just felt so sorry for my mom and Bob. I have to say though, they handled it quite well. Typically ignoring it. But it left me very, very angry at how absolutely disgusting humans can be. ALL HUMANS. Because it isn't just white people who give each other 'the look". And it isn't just white people who make cruel racist jabs out loud when they see an inter-racial couple.
So anyway, Winona is standing there giving me "the look" and my blood starts to boil. And steam starts billowing out my ears. And I am trying really hard to not make a fist because I wanted to punch her in her far-too-pale of a face. She even added a "well, you know . . . you knoooow . . ." and that was it. I burst like a firecracker on the Fourth of July.
See what I did there? Get it? FireCRACKER?
So I pulled out my soapbox and started yelling. Yelling. In a store. In the mall. In front of a customer who was not anything but a customer, about how DARE you accuse anyone of being more likely to shoplift because of the color of their skin? How DARE you insinuate that of all the customers that had been in our store all day this one lady is more likely to shoplift simply because she is BLACK? HOW DARE YOU -- you play the organ in church for fuck sake, and this is how you take to viewing your fellow human beings? Your husband isn't white, either and you STILL MANAGE TO POP OFF WITH RACIST CRAP LIKE THIS? Do you realize this company could be sued for you even suggesting such a thing, and rightfully should be if their employees are profiling . . . blah blah blah" . . . and on it went for a good solid five minutes of me degrading her and her racist comment into the ground. At which point, I turned to the customer, who was all class by the way, acting like she did not hear that skinny crazy gothabilly girl just rant like a banshee . . . and I apologized for my outburst. She acted as though she didn't hear a thing. And who knows, maybe she didn't? I know *I* tend to zone-out when I'm shopping. And then Winona was crying and apologizing and feeling like a jerk, rightfully so.
And I don't suppose it would surprise ANYONE that Winona needed help picking her chin off the shiny mall floor when my very handsome and very black boyfriend picked me up from work that night. I had walked the halls of that very same mall with him -- and sadly we had taken a TON of abuse from black folks on our interracial relationship. Down to the point of a near fist fight for a fellow black man sniping a "trader" at him when walking past us. Joe went off on a black sales clerk for her copping "the look" telling her that she needs to knock that shit off, because "my skin is too light (he was Creole, but a lot of people assumed he was mulatto) for you to date anyway, so don't go giving my girlfriend the look".
So no, I don't really care that Oprah didn't get her way, but I do CARE that racial profiling is still very rampant and very much a real-thing in this world. A lot of people want to pretend it doesn't exist. Or that it doesn't happen. But as anyone that's not quite white, or is in an inter-racial relationship can tell you: racism is very much alive and well.
And some people don't even realize how racist they are. True story! I was just telling Pedro a story last night, because I had just got off the phone with one of my very best friends in the whole world including outer space: Rochida. She's not on facebook so I have to actually call her to update her on my life. Anyway . . . a few years ago, Rochida and I started hanging out with another lady, who really was inadvertantly racist in such a peculiar way I had to go shame her into the ground, too. You see, Rochida is an extremely intelligent and extremely successful banking executive (well she was). She's ALSO a psychotherapist, dealing mostly with family therapy and troubled youth. Without revealing too much of her personal business, she developed a chronic illness and had to leave the banking world. Anyway, this other "friend" of ours (I had to unfriend her, forrealsy, because she refused to parent her child and it made me stabby, but Rochida has remained friends with her, because she has infinite more patience than I do) casually says to me one day "I bought some hair extensions the other day, I wonder if Rochida would mind braiding my hair?"
Wait. WHAT?
Million dollar question: "why would you think Rochida would be able to braid extensions into your hair?".
The look.
"Well you know, because she's black".
Spastic BOMB-BASTIC fireCRACKER reared her ugly head again!
"Do you know what Rochida does for a living?"
"Well isn't she a therapist or something?"
"Annnnd?"
"And what? She does something else?"
"She's the head of Mortgage Modification at <insert name of one of the world's biggest banks> FOR ALL of North America."
"oh? She is?"
"yes. Now can you please explain to me WHY you think she even has the time, or the inclination, or even the KNOWLEDGE of how to braid extensions into your hair? You think she's just going to do this for you BECAUSE SHE'S BLACK???"
"well yeah."
Can somebody stop the planet? I'd like to get off.
"Hmmmm, Rochida is pretty busy, maybe you should give Oprah a call? I'm sure she wouldn't mind braiding your hair! Asshole."
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