Fugitivus Discussion Forum

I'm white. I work at a grocery store, where of course people of all colours, creeds, classes, etc. go, because hey, everyone needs to eat.

While IRL I generally assume someone is a horrible person until they prove otherwise to me (hurrah overzealous defence mechanisms!), I noticed recently that I am way friendlier by default with people of colour, minorities in general, very old people, disabled people, many people on food stamps or WIC and pretty much anyone that is likely lacking privileged arrogance. I am generally harder on whites with food stamps/WIC than any other group on them, and harder on males than females. Anyone on a fancy cell phone/bluetooth immediately gets ignored. Anyone buying caviar or other obscenely expensive stuff immediately gets ignored. Anyone talking about their huge, frivolous shopping spree last weekend gets ignored. Anyone carting their children around like they are a status symbol or an accessory rather than human fucking beings gets ignored, or I side with the kid when they argue. Anyone who says "OH NO I CAN'T AFFORD TO DONATE A DOLLAR TO ____ CHARITY" after buying a bunch of celebrity magazines gets ignored. Anyone who has said something racist, sexist, ageist, or classist (the last two are the big ones! People assume I must be fucking unintelligent just because I'm working for minimum wage or because I'm young, and try to talk down to me until I throw a bunch of multisyllabic words in their faces. GRR) or makes fun of one of the disabled baggers gets ignored every time thereafter that they dare to enter my line because at that point I don't have anything nice to say to them.

This ends with almost every white person that comes through my line being ignored/treated curtly, and almost everyone else being treated super-friendly.

Here's the thing, I'm not sure how much of all of this is me despising people who spout their privilege at me like I give a damn, and how much of this is me being racist against my own race. I try to take everyone on a case-by-case basis, but I know there are days where I just kind of assume every white person who comes through my line is going to be intolerable in some fashion or another and act on that assumption.

Am I just being racist against my own race, or do most people born with privilege really wave it around as much as my customers do and I just never really noticed before? Is racism against one's own race even possible? Do I need to tone it down?

halp.

Wow. There is so much problematic crap in there.

You do realise that you are still essentially othering all those people you are treating "super-friendly", right?

Feel free to ignore me, though, as I happen to own a fancy cell phone in spite of all my other life circumstances and general lack of privilege which would otherwise cause you to treat me with super-friendliness!

This reminds of a couple of weeks ago when I was walking up to the Dunkin' Donuts counter for coffee and noticed a group of super-obvious WASPS. The older and younger males had shirts tied around their necks and the younger male was wearing a polo shirt; the older female had I think a denim *skirt*? around her neck and the younger had capri jeans and supershiny golden thong sandals. At least one of them MUST have owned at least one yacht.

My IMMEDIATE thought was "WOW, Starbucks is on the other end of the mall, you guys..." And I kid you not, turns out some of them actually already had Starbucks drinks.


Psyche: You may have a point, but might I suggest excising the hostility from your posting style?

To address that possible point - esuriospiritus (do you have a preferred truncation?), I think you're being more classist than racist. I worked sales at the Sharper Image for a while and it's probably a good thing I was still obliviously marinating in my own privilege then, because many of the customers were so aggravating based on their economic status alone, sexual and racial benefits aside.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong by saving your courtesy for people who you think deserve it more. If you're actually writing off every person with a cell phone or trashy magazine as worthless scum then you're probably doin' it wrong. Some of the behaviors you describe are just a lack of common courtesy, likely assisted by privilege, but even though I'm privileged myself I'm still capable of treating the person opposite the counter like ... a person. That has more to do with my retail / phone experience than it does with awareness of my privilege, though.

I think there are a couple of small things that your mindset may be unfair about, though:I believe I get your meaning here, but it's possible to read this as though you believe privilege is a thing that people actively and consciously flaunt. By its nature, it's invisible to its owner, though. I assume you're fully aware of that and used bad phrasing, but if you said exactly what you meant, then I think you're talking about an action that isn't actually possible.

This actually is a bit unfair, I think. Charity isn't something you should be considered a bad person for not doing - especially since you all you know is that they didn't donate that specific dollar. They could have hundreds of other dollars they're donating to AIDS research or the Jimmy Fund or maybe even politicians with true progressive agendas. Plus, there's I think a natural instinctive resistance against add-ons or upsells that aren't deviously presented - it's easier to get fleeced by "Would you like a drink with that?" than "Would you like to hear about our product protection plan?". And with charity, you're not even selling anything. You're just saying "Hey want to pay an extra dollar?" And the "I can't afford" lie isn't something they likely actually BELIEVE, it's just the easiest thing to think of to avoid what feels like a sales pitch.

But anyway - the people you're extra-courteous to probably appreciate it, and then you're people you're ambivalent about are like equally ambivalent, so no biggie all told. It's great to fight the fight, but grocery store transactions aren't exactly advantageous terrain for awareness campaigns.

On the one hand, it does sound like you're prejudiced against white people. On the other hand, it seems like your experience with them has made it that way. Ideally, you give everyone a chance on an individual basis. And maybe it's just not safe for you to be more open minded with people. It can be really tricky- you can be prejudiced but technically insulated from the things you hate (as much as is possible) or you can be open minded and continually be disappointed by people. Being prejudiced isn't ideal, but it's something I understand, because from my experience, every time I ever lowered my standards I got abused.

Hopefully there's a happy medium?

Esurio is just fine.

Psyche, if I didn't realize there was a bunch of problematic stuff in there I wouldn't have put it in Educate Me 101. I am trying to figure out what exactly the problem(s) is(are) so I can correct it(them). I wanted outside opinions on what exactly I'm doing wrong, because I don't think I should be the judge of it, myself.

I probably could have worded myself better, though. I realize that it's not so black and white as, "hey, you have a fancy cell phone, you must be a privileged asshole," but when one is repeatedly treated in a ageist/classist manner... I don't know. I've probably been internalizing all of that and reverse-classisting people because it seems like it's always people with more classist privilege who look down their noses at everyone working there. And I think I may have come across as more harsh than I really am on those people (although there's no way of anyone knowing that for sure without coming to my store and watching me work) because I have a bad tendency toward hyperbolic statements, especially when I'm as sleep deprived as I've been lately.



Yeah, it's more people flaunting their money to me or in front of me or making overtly racist/sexist/ableist comments. Of course nobody's going to walk up to me and say "LOOK AT HOW MUCH PRIVILEGE I HAVE ISN'T IT AWESOME" but that's how it comes across a lot of the time.

Regarding the charity thing, I think I'm just incredibly minimalist and anti-consumerism and don't understand people who buy a bunch of what I see as useless junk and then tell me that they can't afford to give any money to a good cause. It's telling to me that even when we're doing the kind of charity donations where a certain dollar amount isn't required, and I ask people if they'd like to donate their change to the cause and get an even total, a lot of people still don't donate even though in most cases it would be more convenient for them to at that point.



Yeah, I think that's how this all started. When I first started working there I managed to be a beacon of good customer service friendliness and gradually came to disdain certain groups of people. I'd like to find that healthy balance where I'm not opening myself to attack but I'm not othering people, either.

For me, the root of this sort of stuff comes down to managing the process of my responses to avoid the whole 'disdain' thing. A couple of posts at BitchPhD got me thinking about how my tendency to characterise groups / types of people I'm uncomfortable with is actually quite bigoted.

If I don't short-circuit my responses, I invariably get to the point where a bus ride shared with a boisterous group of teenagers becomes an hour-and-a-half long mental hate-grumble of 'I fucking hate teenagers, why've they gotta be so (whatever)? Ugh, they just don't care that they're in space other people have to use too...'. Which I eventually realised was basically me feeling that I had more right to be comfortable in that space than they did, and that I kinda wanted to punish them for being comfortable, when their behaviour had such a discomforting effect on me. If I replaced 'teenager' with, say, 'lesbian' in my inner hate-screed, it'd be blindingly obvious that I was being a total fuckwit.

I value my judgement, and I also value my capacity to be judgemental - being able to decide that interacting with a person isn't worth the hassle is what keeps me away from people who would otherwise be poisoning my space. I think it's important to keep judgement from becoming something which is just another kind of bigotry, though. If I tell myself that feeling contempt based on my perception of people's privilege-waving is just as bigoted as my father's transphobia, I can usually manage to distance myself from behaviour I find distasteful without needing to loathe the people involved.

I kind of agree that it's a lot more classist than racist... for one, because you can't actually be racist towards whites [from what I understand, I could very well be wrong here]. Prejudiced, sure. But the bits about automatically judging white people on food stamps really ... is quite offensive.

I'm on food stamps. I need it in order to, you know, eat anything remotely healthy. And I have a fancy schmancy cell phone and a Bluetooth... because I got the phone for cheaper than the plain ones [thank gods for activation sales, no?] and Bluetooth is required here if you want to make a call while on the road. And I'm on the road a lot. Oh, and the headset was a gift. Not only that, I'm fucking poor and rather disabled. So... to make a judgment about me because I have a useful phone and a headset that was a gift is ... man, I don't know. It's rude, for one thing, and it's also ignoring things like "maybe they got that stuff before they fell on hard times."

That said [and five hours later due to me forgetting I had an appointment, go me!], I think it is telling that you at least have realized it and are asking for input on how to solve the problem. Doesn't mean it's all done and you don't have to worry about it, but hey, none of us are perfect.

Also, something just hit me -- what if the person buying all the expensive magazines is donating them? Then maybe they still won't be able to afford the $1 to prostate cancer or whatever, but they are actively donating.

The thing is, even though there are outward appearances of privilege [white, fancy phone, whatever], you don't know what's going on in their lives. Invisible disabilities. Job difficulties. Their last shopping trip before they have to cut back to ramen and rice and they want to have something special to remind themselves that they're still worth pampering.

...

okay, that turned really really long and quite rambly. I hope it's all understandable, if not please don't hesitate to ask for clarification.

As I understand it, racism is racial prejudice backed by social power, so since whites are, in America, at the top of the racial power structure, no, that wouldn't really be racism, even if the disliking is being done by another white person. Pardon my giant ugly sentence.

Also, policing people's purchases for "acceptability" seems like a lousy thing to do, much like policing people with handicapped plates/placards in parking lots. Just as you can't tell if someone has chronic pain, or fatigue, or injuries that make it difficult to walk far, or over ice just by looking at them, you can't tell (as Kaie pointed out) what's going on in someone's life just by looking at them. Also the "poor people don't DESERVE anything nice" is an increasingly common thing that just really aggravates me. A cell phone is not indicative of wealth, and possession of a cell phone by someone who isn't wealthy is not indicative of frivolity. I don't know about where you folks all live, but up here, housing or enough food to feed an adult (much less a family) for a month costs a fuck-ton more than a cell-phone plan, even one that includes data. So having access to a phone number and e-mail seems like a good investment of limited funds if you're un- or under-employed, since then you're accessible to potential employers. Also, you have the option to , oh, I don't know, stay in touch with friends, loved ones and support communities, which is especially important if you're down on your luck and out of work or unable to work. It's pretty damn unlikely that that cell phone, much less that magazine, is all that stands between them not needing social assistance to survive. As for the charity - hell, there are charities I refuse to support, and times I don't donate to one I usually support because I already gave earlier that week, or because it's the fourth time today I've been asked, or because I'm tired and stressed out and just want to end the whole being-out-in-public-interacting-with-strangers thing RIGHT NOW. Again, all you see of their lives is the few minutes they're in line - maybe they are entitled douchebags you can shame into social awareness, but again, maybe they aren't.


As for the not wanting to be nice to anyone who is sexist, ableist, ageist, classist, racist, what have you - OK, I get that. However, policing other people's parenting or purchasing decisions seems, well, obnoxious. Maybe the caviar purchaser is someone of your economic bracket who saved up for a dinner party on a special occasion, or maybe they're just someone who works a more lucrative job than yours and can afford to eat caviar for lunch twice a week. Neither is actually a crime or even an indication that they're a terrible person. (Neither makes them an inherently better person either, obviously). It just indicates that for whatever reason, today they wanted some caviar and were able to purchase it.

Anyhow, your pattern of loathing doesn't make you racist against white people, and there's really no requirement that you like everyone you meet. On the other hand, policing for people who don't meet your standards of "appropriate" behavior for their race and apparent class status (particularly if they just saw you interacting with someone you approved of) is likely to cause just a little more pain in their world if they catch on. I'm thinking here of being hardest on white people on WIC or food stamps - which is in and of itself weird - white people should be "better than that", but it's OK if POC are on one of those programs? Are there other forms of "racially appropriate" behavior you watch for? That might be an interesting thing to check, actually. I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm just really curious about why you'd specify whites on food stamps as being "bad," and what other behaviors you check against race to see if it's OK.

I'm just going to stop here before I go tangenting off again, actually. I've reached and probably surpassed my coherency limit for the evening.

I've been thinking a lot about the points everyone here has brought up lately and trying to figure out where this is all stemming from so I can understand it better/rid myself of "other"ing thinking as much as possible, and I think a lot of it probably comes from stress + jealousy. I am poor as shit myself, as it happens, and all my fiance's and my money goes to rent/electic/water or food with not a dime to put toward savings or anything other than those things. (To be fair, I don't eat ramen every meal of every day because I've been there + done that for years and I will mentally implode if I have to do it again, so we eat... reasonably well. Cheaply, but as healthily as we can for cheap. I eat probably 4 or 5 bananas a day because they're good for you and one banana can fill me up for a couple hours, and four bananas cost me about a dollar.) We don't even have a car or internet (I leech off my neighbour's shaky wireless connection) or cable or clothing to replace worn out stuff or anything like that that many people consider necessities. My computer was given to me for school and my phone and phone bills are... free because my father works for a telecommunication company. I don't tell any of you this because I want pity, I just want to paint a clear picture here.

If I think about my actions in that context, it makes a lot more sense as to why that behaviour had started with me. Every time someone has something I can't even sort of afford, especially when they have it in front of me while I'm working my butt off for minimum wage, it just... feels like an insult to me. It's jealousy, that I can't afford things I might really need or want, and it's stress for much the same reasons. People who I perceive to be less privileged probably are less of a "threat" to my not having a mental breakdown because I'm so poor, and therefore I've felt safer actually engaging with them. Reading back on my original post in this thread especially, that much seems obvious to me.

It's really hard for me to admit all this to myself (because, hey, I don't like admitting that I'm poor and that being poor has probably done some pretty terrible things to my psyche that I now have to actively work to undo) but I think thinking about everything like this has helped me battle it a little better. My shift also goes a little faster when I'm forcing myself not to fixate on comparing my lack of money to other people's relative abundance of money, and thus being nicer to everyone, not just the people I perceive as being closer to my income bracket/less innately privileged. And hey, some of the people who obviously have money aren't actually assholes! Some of them are, of course, but that's to be expected and may or may not actually be related to their income.