Tywana and I are in Florida for a few days. We stopped by Publix to pick up two items. As we were standing in line to check out, this guy (white guy) pushes past us and hands a sausage to the cashier. I assumed he was with the other guy who was in front of us checking out. He didn’t say a word. No “Excuse me.”, nothing. He didn’t even acknowledge our presence. It turns out he was not with the other guy. He had just gone back to get the sausage and returned to line where his items were on the belt and handed it to the cashier. She checked him out and we moved up to take our turn.
As soon as he left, the cashier, a young white girl, immediately said “I’m sorry.” Tywana asked why she was apologizing. She said “That guy was so rude. He didn’t say ‘Excuse me’ or anything to you. He could have just waited. You only had two items. I can’t believe how he acted. What are you gonna do about people like that.” We agreed he had been rude, but what impressed me was that this young lady not only noticed his behavior, she acknowledged it and she apologized on his behalf.
Now, the question. Was his behavior racist or just rude? Would he have done that had we been white? We will never know. This is just one of those incidents in life that leaves you wondering about the rude behavior of some people when it’s directed to you, as a minority. Are they racist or just ill-mannered? What we do know is this young lady handled it fantastically. And that gives me hope for the future.
