Systematic racism and police brutality in the United States (US) is unraveling in front of the US and the world like a celebrity red carpet, as a Afro-Bahamian studying in the US has caused much cognitive dissonance within me. Being Afro-Bahamian who currently lives in the US gives me the advantage of being able to look into the window from the outside and see what is going on inside the happy home that The United States of America portrays itself to be.
Recently, I was racially profiled as a thief.
Simply, my friends and I were shopping in a very popular commercial superstore, famous for their lower prices when this act of racism occurred. I say racism and not prejudice, because racism requires the exertion of power while prejudice does not. This woman exerted her power, even though it was minimum over my friend and I.
So here is the story, two of us are black (Bahamian to be specific), and one of us is white. After about an hour and half of shopping, we arrived at self check-out. I told my friends that I rather check out my groceries with a cashier because I always have difficulties at the self-service checkout. However, my friends encouraged me to try again, insisting that they would help me. I foreshadowed my troubles. I had difficulties at the register this time too. I attempted to cancel all my items which required the assistance of the self check-out attendant whom quickly examined our trolly. She asked me in an inculpatory tone, "Are you canceling all your items?" I told her I was having issues with cashing my items and planned to restart. She paused and gave me a look of suspicion. Then she stated that we needed to remove all items out of the cart that hadn't been purchased as yet. I complied. Then, she left and returned behind her counter. Why couldn't it have just ended there?
Finally, I checked out all of my items and we proceeded to leave. However, we were stopped at her counter and asked for our receipts. Which is understandable, fine. We bought cases of water, she wanted a receipt for those, because they weren't inside of a bag, because they could not be bagged. We gave her the receipt for those items.
Understandable, fine.
Then she examined the other bags in our trolly, asking for the receipts of for those items too. Which my friend provided. This all sounds acceptable for the most part, until it is revealed that she did not ask the several customers who checked out before us nor the other customers that left after us that we saw. The only difference I saw between the other customers and my friend and I was the color of our skin. I am pretty sure my white friend would not have had basically all of her bags examined if she was not accompanying us; which is why the confusion was easily read on her face as our bags were searched. However, my Bahamian friend and I knew what was happening to us because we knew "what's up".
This woman may not have been a racist but she was behaving like one. She realized it too as she discovered all of our items were paid for; she attempted to explain why she was scrutinizing our shopping bag and receipts. She began rambling and justifying why she has to do this. Why she had to do this to us. If she truly believed a word she said, she wouldn't have said a word. She would have just done her job. She explained her actions as if she wanted us to justify them or say that we understand why she had to be racist. Well, we don't understand and if we weren't respectable young ladies we would have told her what else we don't give. We won't justify the guilt you have for your prejudices. Justify yourself; or change your mentality and behaviors so you have nothing to justify.
