Once again I bring you a sorted tale from work...
So after assisting an elderly Afro American customer through the store and all the way to the register, I proceed to ring up her merchandise. I alert her of the total and bag while she gathers her cash, and then continue to wait. As always I repeat the total due and hold my hand out (something I hate to do, it just looks and feels sooo needy), she puts the cash on the counter and nudges it towards me!!! I look at the money and then I look back at her, with a frown of course. I was appalled.
Who does that anymore?
It always really hurts and offends me when people toss, money at me or place it on the counter, especially when my hand is out and ready to receive. My anger and my hurt is taken a intensified when the culprit is Afro American. As a oppressed people we are so backwards most of the time, especially when it comes to doling out the same oppressive ways and stereotypes that were doled to us.
This is no where near 1965 Jim Crow NC, let's get it together and treat each other right. I was not even a thought then and before when Caucasians used to feel that to come in contact with an Afro American through touch would bring an end to civilization, I do know, however, that the notion is just as crazy today as it was then. I enjoy having a job right now when so many others can not say the same but one day my tongue is going to slip and I am going to remind someone of how demeaning it is to place money on the counter in any case, so that at least they can take that pearl of wisdom with them to the next store. I am a person just like you, so put the money in my hand. I find it hilarious that many Caucasian customers will sometimes go out of their way to make sure that they do put the money in my hand while Afro Americans will lay it on the counter and look at me like I have lost my marbles when I repeat the total for the third time in hopes that they will pick up the money and hand it to me.
Long story short, I think I am going to give the next person a dose of their own ignorance or I will have someone else take their money just to make my point.
Errrrrrr!!!
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Girl, some people just think it's rude to put money in someone's hand like that. I think my grandmother told me you never put money in someone's hand, you always put it on the counter so it can be counterd properly and handing money over like that is rude. For some, it's a cultural thing. She may not have intentionally tried to be rude.
ReplyDeleteI never looked at it like that?
ReplyDeleteThanks