After I posted my problem in the way I was treated by a staffer at "Easy" I received a number of responses, most sympathetic, then some just plain pathetic.
The ones in the "pathetic" category seemed to run a consistent thread of wanting to explain away the staffers behavior when the writer wasn't even at Easy at the time of the incident -- let alone at all. It's this desire to avoid adressing a problem that keeps us as a society from making sure such scenarios don't happen again. I must also report that no one African American wrote to disagree.
The main point is that if a person explains that something in the way they were treated was racist, don't try to explain it away if you were not there to witness it. Remember there are really a limited number of ways one can treat someone else: mean or nice. The reasons this is done vary from person to person. Thus one can be mean to someone for reasons of racial difference and express the same behavior to someone else for a different set of reasons.
This is what must be understood: racism is a form of rejection. If one who is black is being excluded or singled out as "bad" and for no reason attached to their actions, but for their simple existence in a place or establishment, and they're a racial minoity in that setting, it's only logical to assume the problem is tied to racial prejudice.
That explains thousands of encounters African Americans, or those who are dark-skined, experience every day. It could be someone at BART who walks past a black person to ask somone white standing next to them for information on the next train. Or it could be scores of people who are not black walking past a black person sitting at a bench waiting on a train and only to sit at the next bench -- and more often than not where somone who's either white or not black is sitting.
This problem is pervasive, and must be stopped as it's borne of racial anxieties that should not exist. Remember the definition of "anxiety" is a fear that in reality will never happen but the person believes will occur.
If in reading this, you think people don't behave this way, just look around. For example, I was in North Beach with friends on the Saturday before the date of this post, when others -- white and English by accent and not known by me -- asked me if I was happy Ghana won.
"What?" Was my reply.
See, they assumed that because I'm black I was from Ghana and therefore knew about that country's World Cup win. I didn't know a thing. Remember, this was because I'm black. That's like me assuming that someone knew about the match between Germany and Poland because they were white.
Geez, man.
It's a primitive way of thinking and arguably a kind of mental illness that must be treated.
The ones in the "pathetic" category seemed to run a consistent thread of wanting to explain away the staffers behavior when the writer wasn't even at Easy at the time of the incident -- let alone at all. It's this desire to avoid adressing a problem that keeps us as a society from making sure such scenarios don't happen again. I must also report that no one African American wrote to disagree.
The main point is that if a person explains that something in the way they were treated was racist, don't try to explain it away if you were not there to witness it. Remember there are really a limited number of ways one can treat someone else: mean or nice. The reasons this is done vary from person to person. Thus one can be mean to someone for reasons of racial difference and express the same behavior to someone else for a different set of reasons.
This is what must be understood: racism is a form of rejection. If one who is black is being excluded or singled out as "bad" and for no reason attached to their actions, but for their simple existence in a place or establishment, and they're a racial minoity in that setting, it's only logical to assume the problem is tied to racial prejudice.
That explains thousands of encounters African Americans, or those who are dark-skined, experience every day. It could be someone at BART who walks past a black person to ask somone white standing next to them for information on the next train. Or it could be scores of people who are not black walking past a black person sitting at a bench waiting on a train and only to sit at the next bench -- and more often than not where somone who's either white or not black is sitting.
This problem is pervasive, and must be stopped as it's borne of racial anxieties that should not exist. Remember the definition of "anxiety" is a fear that in reality will never happen but the person believes will occur.
If in reading this, you think people don't behave this way, just look around. For example, I was in North Beach with friends on the Saturday before the date of this post, when others -- white and English by accent and not known by me -- asked me if I was happy Ghana won.
"What?" Was my reply.
See, they assumed that because I'm black I was from Ghana and therefore knew about that country's World Cup win. I didn't know a thing. Remember, this was because I'm black. That's like me assuming that someone knew about the match between Germany and Poland because they were white.
Geez, man.
It's a primitive way of thinking and arguably a kind of mental illness that must be treated.
Comments
You don't need to post this comment, I just want to respond to what you said personally. If you considered my comment in the group of "pathetic" attempts to "explain away," the incident, I'm sorry. I actually was at the bar at the time of the incident, so I witnessed many people being thrown out in the rush. Many of them felt they were being treated poorly and were very angry about it. And my insistence that racism was not the genesis of the issue comes from my personal relationship with the employee in question, who I've known quite well for a long time, and I known him to be extremely intolerant of racist attitudes in all forms, and have never once seen him single out anyone for their race. I understand that racism is a terrible problem, and one that I have also had the pain and frustration of experiencing. I do not find it tolerable in any form. I was simply trying to point out that, as I witnessed personally and also heard from others later, you were not, in fact, singled out, and that, in this particular case, you jumped to the wrong conclusion.
Whether you like the fact or not, your "good acquaintance" reacted in a way that not just me BUT A WITNESS believed was racist. I'm sorry if that's hard for your to deal with, but that's what happened. You weren't even within shouting distance of my problem. It did deal with race and sex, because he confronted me directly and with my back turned. So you have nothing to say. Moreover, your idea of "racist attitudes" undoubtedly involves name -calling, when racism takes on many forms. Until you and people like you -- of which this person apparently is since you're claiming to be such "good buddies" with him -- learn to open your minds and hearts and just plain say "I'm sorry" these forms of subtle racism will continue and be battled by people like me.