So yesterday I stopped into the Big Lots down the street from my apartment (looking for a pitcher for a sangria experiment). When I went to the counter to pay for my super cheap find (it has tumblers too!) everything went ok, well until right at the end. When my receipt printed out I reached my hand out to take it and the (white) woman at the counter reached past my hand to place it on the counter and then abruptly turned to help the next person.
Maybe, if it was any other day I wouldn't have minded but I was reminded of a professor who told me he once went off on a clerk for doing the same thing to him at a local coffee shop. As he was recounting the story to me I remember thinking "maybe you were over reacting", but when it happened to me I wasn't so sure. I was in such a good mood and smiling and looking the woman in the eye. Usually people love me when I do that or are at least so shaken by a happy black woman they get their ish together! But apparently not this woman.
Now, sometimes I have a hard time knowing the clear difference between the service industry in California (where that woman would have handed me the receipt with a fake smile at least) and Ohio (people here just really don't give a sh!+ about customer service, if they aint feeling it, they don't pretend). So I wonder, "did she do that to me because I'm black or is she just crazy rude!). Honestly, after three years here I've realized that it's probably both.
People may not want to hear this, but I have never met so many rude white people who are smiling along with the white woman in front of me, but lay eyes on me and suddenly it's all business again (seriously!?). Again, it is hard to tell if they're just rude or if it's racial. A lot of people would try and avoid a talk about race by saying "Well those idiots were just jerks." I would agree, but I'd like to point out that just like I can't separate the fact that I'm a black woman into parts, neither can people when they interact with me. It's impossible. So it really could be that these people are just rude and feel free being rude as hell while getting paid because I'm black and their super douche-y (using douche as an insult, BEST thing Ohio ever gave me).
And, one thing I've noticed is that, for me, it's usually white women. Not that every white man has been unbelievably nice to me, but I have noticed that white women are particularly more rude to me than white men. Made it's gender based (if I flash a smile most dudes let their guards down), but a lot of older women (mid-thirties and up) are not having it.
Not to always compare Ohio to California (I mean really, we know who's coming out on top), but this state always makes me uncomfortable. I'm very often the only black person in a sea of white faces. White kids stare at me in the grocery store (I can't stand kids anyway, so I chalk that up to them being irritating little monsters), a lot of white people I meet seriously think I'm an idiot, I mean a lot. My first year here was like an uphill battle ("No I can read and that's not what the author said." "No I have read Derrida, have you?" "Actually feminist theory completely refutes that idea" "How have you never heard of bell hooks?") I haven't ever seriously considered living here (in part) because being the only brown face and going all out of my way to get hair care products is not the way I planned to live my life, let alone start a family.
And sometimes on campus, as a person of color, I feel so isolated here. I've got a great group of friends but I've never been the type of person to necessarily be all in the cultural clubs and from what I've heard that might be a good decision. And as a black woman especially, I've noticed that a lot of efforts towards the minority populations are centered on men, supporting male students, providing outlets for their fellowship with their classmates and alumni as strong male role models. But women of color... nah... not so much.
It's something barely tangible but I feel like I fall through all the cracks here. I feel the absence of a community of women of color (and white women) who keep me in line and support me. Here, people of color seem to be beyond talking with one another. I have a friend who's half Mexican and she is really the lone non-black woman of color in my department who is connected with the Black students.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that this place is a whole new world, one from which I am dying to escape.
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