I’m a white guy from a fairly non-diverse city. I was at a grocery store today where a cashier opened up their line to serve me and, I thought, the person behind me. As they were serving me, though, they put up their lane closed sign right in front of the black man behind me. The buy was just trying to purchase some tuna, bread, and peanut butter.
The cashier basically decided to serve me, a middle class white man, but refused to serve the black man behind me. I was so shocked that I didn’t say anything. It is possible that I misunderstood the situation but it seemed so blatant.
What should I have done in this situation? Should I have spoken up? Would that have just been more embarrassing for the man who was being discriminated against?
Honestly, I’m still just in shock to see someone treated so poorly when they were simply trying to buy food for themselves. I recognize that means that I’m sheltered but I also feel like I should be able to use my unearned privilege to help others who are being discriminated against.
While this might not be racist if the cashier had other reasons to close the line as the comments in this thread may suggest, it is a sort of death by a thousand paper cuts for minorities that go through this. Actual racists like to hide their racism in plausible deniability. So it makes it difficult for anyone to call them out. Someone in the comments said they “hate when people assume it’s racism” but I feel like they haven’t considered how often BIPOC ppl have to make that call. It’s such a mental load and it sucks.
People also go through this when it comes to sexual harassment. Like, if someone puts their hands on your waist to move past you in a narrow hallway, you have no idea whether they’re acting innocently or not. But if they do that to no one else except you… it starts looking sus. That’s how a lot of this bad behavior goes. It’s not as simple as giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, because bad actors take advantage of your doubt to act how they will.
So don’t assume the cashier was being racist, but don’t assume they weren’t either. Be suspicious of bs like that, and act accordingly.