Today's Racial Microaggression Courtesy of WinCo [UPDATED]
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My clue as to what happened was when this young lady called over her supervisor and said, “yeah, this guy is running an EBT transaction, and it said ‘system error.'”Now, ignoring for the moment the fact that “system error” and “transaction declined” are two very different messages that mean different things, I simply said,
“That’s the problem, I’m not paying with an EBT card.”
“Oh, you’re not? Okay, debit, then?”
“Yes, it’s a debit card.”
She told me to swipe it again and enter my PIN, and lo and behold, it went through.
“That’s why it didn’t work,” she said, with a perfunctory half-shrug.
Now, again, ignoring for the moment that she didn’t apologize for her mistake of not simply asking me how I was paying for my groceries… I wanted to ask her, “what made you think that I was using an EBT card?”
Today is Easter, and Holly and I are wearing the same clothes we wore to church today, which for me, meant a nice colorful shirt with a collar, and slacks. I’m carrying keys with a black remote fob that has the Volvo logo on it, and I’m wearing a smartwatch. I’m cleanly shaven, with an old-black-man-looking hat on, and those of you who know me well know exactly what kind of hat I’m talking about. (Apparently it’s called a “flat cap.”)
Also, Holly and I were having a normal sounding conversation about taxes and road conditions and whatnot.
The point is, everything about my look and demeanor practically SCREAMS middle-class.
Now, did I bring this up to her? No, because I didn’t want to embarrass her. Am I gonna call her manager or something? No, I have stuff to do. In isolation, this is not a big deal. She made a simple mistake, and I don’t believe in punishing people who work in retail for basic mistakes. Life is too short for that.
But I wonder…
Did she even think twice when she assumed that I was using an EBT card? Was it just because it’s WinCo and everyone there uses an EBT card? Or did the fact that I’m black make it easier for her to make that assumption?
The truth is, there’s no way for me to know. And maybe even there’s no way for HER to know. These kinds of assumptions happen on a subconscious level. I’m sure she didn’t have the explicit thought, “black people are poor,” she just acted on her experiences and biases.
But when you’ve experienced these kinds of things for your whole life, you get good at recognizing them.
All of us have biases, and we all make split second judgments about people every day. When you live in a city, it’s part of how you learn to navigate the world. But those of us with more cultural competency have learned to speak and act in a way that helps us sometimes to account for those biases.
It’s not an exact science, and it’s not lost on me that earlier today at church, I might have accidentally offended someone else in the way that I answered someone’s question because of my own cultural blind spot. In a way, we’re all just doing the best we can and hoping for the best.
But yeah, I guess I just want to say that I hope that young lady at WinCo doesn’t have to learn the hard way not to make those kinds of assumptions about black people, because if it happens enough times, she’s gonna get put on BLAST and it won’t be a good situation.
UPDATE (4/18):
After mulling over it for the last day or so, I decided to call the store.
I spoke with a manager this morning, and he apologized for the cashier’s mistake. After posting this, several people reached out to tell me about this lawsuit over something similar, and I kept that in the back of my mind as I made the phone call. Ultimately, I chose not to mention it because I could tell right away that the manager was doing his best to understand the situation and I didn’t want to escalate with anything that could be inferred to be a threat.
One thing the manager mentioned is that many of the cashiers that work there do their best to look at the card as it’s being swiped, and anticipate what kind of transaction it’s going to be, both because it speeds things up as well as because some customers are uncomfortable being asked if they’re using an EBT card — which is very understandable. What he said to me was (and I’m paraphrasing somwhat), “I would hope that she would’ve made that assumption based on what she thought the card looked like, and not based on appearance.” I told him that I would hope so, but that I couldn’t be sure, and that’s what bothered me.
For those who think that it was simply about the appearance of the card, I’ve included pictures of the Washington state EBT card (because this was in Vancouver), the Oregon state EBT card (because I mentioned that I’m an Oregonian), and the debit card for my credit union. They’re all sort of blue, but they don’t look that similar.
Thanks to those who urged me to follow up. The manager assured me that he would bring it up during the next cashier’s meeting, and I hope he does. I will be returning to that store, if only to ensure that I receive the normal level of customer service to which I’m accustomed, where cashiers refrain from making assumptions based on race.
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Well said & I so honor you for choosing grace in the face of someone’s judgment based on race! Now that’s a “strong black man”!!
This happens to me at my neighborhood Winco in Vancouver, WA probably once per month. I really love Winco so I wish they would do some cultural competency trainings with staff instead of assuming all brown people use EBT.
that’s interesting that you mentioned Vancouver. I didn’t say this in the post, but it happened at a WinCo in Vancouver.
“Courtesy of WinCo.” You mean “courtesy of an ignorant person who happens to work at Winco, ” don’t you? To paint the whole of WinCo with that woman’s brush sounds a bit like the thing you’re complaining about. WinCo didn’t do this to you. An individual, who was probably just running on autopilot, did.
Im thinking you can’t be serious. In your minds eye, would you be less offended if you were dressed more casually. Because that would make you look “more poor”? Do poor people not attend church.
As much as I enjoyed your story, I am disappointed that youvchise to do nothing about it. It seems that you cared more about her than she did about you. You should’ve handled it better. What happened to you happens across the country to Black people. If we say and do nothing about it, these stories just become meaningless conversations with friends over coffee. Many of us think that because we ” look” middle class, that White racism will some how overlook our Blackness, and take the day off. Nothing could be further from the truth. I appreciate that you correctly observed the microaggression, but c’mon man, next time, do something about it.
She didn’t look at your nice middle class clothes and watch. All she saw was a black face. You should have schooled her and her supervisor.
Very sorry about this. I wish we were better people.
Her job is cashier and not be concerned how a customer pays for their food!
Being believers puts us into precarious positions often when it comes to relating to others. Couple this with each of our places in our respective process of our understanding and on-going (and hopefully on-growing) experience with grace. Often we find ourselves in situations where on the surface, it seems that others should know better (e.g. the cashier, or the co-worker, or worse, the supervisor, or fill-in-the-blank).. opportunities of bringing others into a better experience, or a better awareness, or a better understanding are countless. I appreciate your transparency and willingness to write about your inner process and how it went together with your outer one. It translates especially well for all. Keep on Jelani, this is kingdom stuff.