Piss Off Racism!

by Cafe Mocha

It pisses me off when I have to go pee and I can’t. That’s what happened when I went out to a lounge bar with a friend. After some drinks I ended up in a long line for the bathroom and waited my turn. The line was on one side of the hallway and when I got closer to the front, I noticed a girl and a bald guy with muscles standing on the other side. They were making their way closer to the front and I was wondering if they were going to cut in especially since the guy looked like he was a staff member. But they didn’t until it was my turn. Baldy muscles put his hand in front of me and waived the girl behind him to go ahead. I was pissed off because I was nearly about to piss my pants. I waited in that line like everyone else and who the hell was he to cut me off? And why was I the one, when he had let other people go through, that got stopped?
Well, he was white, she was white, everyone else there was white while I’m the colour of a café moka. I asked the guy why is it okay to let white people go first, but I’m not sure if he really heard me since the music was so loud and I couldn’t really hear what he said back. For all I know, he could’ve apologized but I was still mad. So after I finally made it to the bathroom I went back to my friend and told her what happened. She said I was overreacting and ended up talking to the guy who said he had let the coat check girl in front of me (who by the way, was not the coat check girl when we had come in and out of the place). When my friend and I were making our way back home she told me that what happened wasn’t about me. Maybe it wasn’t, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was.
When you’re a minority, you see the world differently. You notice if you stand out in the crowd, you notice how that crowd’s reacting to you and you notice how it makes you feel about yourself. You’ve got moments where people think it’s so cool that you’re different (OMG! Where are you from!). You’ve got other times when people are indifferent and they treat you how they would anyone else. Then you’ve got those instances when people put you down.
I once was at an office where the majority of the people were white. Out of all the people who started at the same time I had, I was the only coloured one and while most treated me well, there were still a few who didn’t. These were the people who’d address the other new people when we’d be standing in a group but leave me out. They would actually cut off a conversation I’d be having with someone, physically stand in front me so I wouldn’t be included, and start speaking to that person. They invited the other new people to hang with them, leaving me out. They would only talk to me if they needed me to help schlep stuff around. Basically, I was being treated like I was inferior just because of my skin colour. Did I yell “racist!” like I did in the bathroom line? Of course not, I was in a professional setting and I made a point to be nice to those people, hoping they would change. I held my head high while I was in the office but I would cry on my way home. It hurt like hell, being treated like crap for something I can’t help. I’ve gone through some other experiences, but none have made me feel as bad as this one.
So that’s where my outburst was coming from. Although I’m not surprised my friend didn’t understand, she’s white. But she once dated a black guy and told me how people would go up to them, ask what she was doing with him and told her that she could do better. She said she was surprised about the kind of looks he got when they were at the theater once and he left her for a few minutes to get their tickets. She said she never realized she lived in a “white bubble.” They only saw each other for a few months and broke it off on friendly terms but I guess the experience still didn’t burst that bubble of hers. One time, when one of our white friends was talking about the looks she’d get from people when she was with her black husband or while she was holding their baby, my other white friend brushed it off, saying she was seeing something that wasn’t there.
But it is there and sometimes it can make you feel terrible even though you’ve done nothing wrong. Why it can make you feel that way, I’m not sure. I guess it’s how unjust the whole thing is, how people let such insignificant differences dictate how they treat others. I mean, we’re all humans, HUMANS regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, size, age, handicap, etc and we all have FEELINGS that should be respected unless you do something that doesn’t merit that respect.
Now back to the bar. Maybe I was out of line, saying what I did to the guy, because it could’ve had nothing to do with colour. But maybe by yelling at him he’ll think twice before he cuts the line for someone (because regardless if it had to do with my race or not it was still WRONG) and just maybe, my friend will start to see outside of her white bubble and remember that this kind of discrimination still exists.
What happened may not have had anything to do with race, and while you read this, you might be thinking that I overreacted too. But when you feel like you’re being discriminated against, you’ve had a few drinks and you’ve really got to pee, how can you not expect but to get a little pissed off?