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Putting this here because it didn't happen at work.
Background: I happen to be whiter than rice (my background, as far as I know, is French / Italian with a sprinkle of German, but the Italian bit doesn't really show in my case...I don't have the olive skin that many Sicilians have, I look either French or German). The other day I had to take a bus route I don't normally take, which boarded at a station I don't normally frequent, because of maintenance shutting down part of my train commute to work. Now part of this may be a fail on my part just because I'm not familiar with this route. I have, however, been riding buses and trains in this city for two years, so I'm not a total novice.
Ok so I'm at the bus stop. This stop is part of a MAJOR hub which (on normal days) serves over 10 routes as well as the light rail. My bus pulls up and the 15 or so people who are waiting there just stare at it. Given this stop serves multiple routes, I assume they are waiting for a different bus. There's a guy with a walker, but he's also not even moving toward the bus (if he had been I'd have let him go first...with a husband in a wheelchair I get the challenges the disabled face).
So I hop on the bus, show my pass, and sit down. Next on is a Latina woman (this will be important later) who walks up to me and says "That was VERY disrespectful!" So I assume the proper thing to do at this stop is just stand there until everyone else decides to stop making moon eyes at the bus and actually board? Every other route I've been on, you get on when the doors open.
I inform her my husband is in a wheelchair and I know about problems the disabled have. She keeps going, I try to explain (though in more heated terms than I should) that nobody was getting on the bus and I didn't think they wanted this route.
She then fires back with "White girls...blah blah blah" (won't repeat the rest here). Now, if I'd had my head together, I'd have answered "Porque crees estoy racista solo porque soy blanca? (Spanish for "why do you think I'm racist just because I'm white?")
My Spanish is far from perfect but our head housekeeper at the hotel says my pronunciation is excellent. That probably would have stopped her in her tracks. But I didn't think of it. I grew up hearing stories about the bus boycotts in the southern United States. I had a picture of Martin Luther King on the wall of my childhood bedroom. I read Roots at age 14 and devoured stories and movies of the Underground Railroad. I am related to Latinos (first by marriage via my aunt, then by blood via my cousins). I'm involved with several social justice communities online. I've tutored people from Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and served hotel guests from all over the world and treated them all with respect. At the age of 10, I told off my grandfather when he used the N word.
I've never been called racist before. It was kind of a shock.
Background: I happen to be whiter than rice (my background, as far as I know, is French / Italian with a sprinkle of German, but the Italian bit doesn't really show in my case...I don't have the olive skin that many Sicilians have, I look either French or German). The other day I had to take a bus route I don't normally take, which boarded at a station I don't normally frequent, because of maintenance shutting down part of my train commute to work. Now part of this may be a fail on my part just because I'm not familiar with this route. I have, however, been riding buses and trains in this city for two years, so I'm not a total novice.
Ok so I'm at the bus stop. This stop is part of a MAJOR hub which (on normal days) serves over 10 routes as well as the light rail. My bus pulls up and the 15 or so people who are waiting there just stare at it. Given this stop serves multiple routes, I assume they are waiting for a different bus. There's a guy with a walker, but he's also not even moving toward the bus (if he had been I'd have let him go first...with a husband in a wheelchair I get the challenges the disabled face).
So I hop on the bus, show my pass, and sit down. Next on is a Latina woman (this will be important later) who walks up to me and says "That was VERY disrespectful!" So I assume the proper thing to do at this stop is just stand there until everyone else decides to stop making moon eyes at the bus and actually board? Every other route I've been on, you get on when the doors open.
I inform her my husband is in a wheelchair and I know about problems the disabled have. She keeps going, I try to explain (though in more heated terms than I should) that nobody was getting on the bus and I didn't think they wanted this route.
She then fires back with "White girls...blah blah blah" (won't repeat the rest here). Now, if I'd had my head together, I'd have answered "Porque crees estoy racista solo porque soy blanca? (Spanish for "why do you think I'm racist just because I'm white?")
My Spanish is far from perfect but our head housekeeper at the hotel says my pronunciation is excellent. That probably would have stopped her in her tracks. But I didn't think of it. I grew up hearing stories about the bus boycotts in the southern United States. I had a picture of Martin Luther King on the wall of my childhood bedroom. I read Roots at age 14 and devoured stories and movies of the Underground Railroad. I am related to Latinos (first by marriage via my aunt, then by blood via my cousins). I'm involved with several social justice communities online. I've tutored people from Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and served hotel guests from all over the world and treated them all with respect. At the age of 10, I told off my grandfather when he used the N word.
I've never been called racist before. It was kind of a shock.
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