A modern immigrant story, based on true events!
By: Yana Blue
Tags: Racial Justice, Respect, Racial Discrimination, Immigration

Racial discrimination

I wrote the piece below in 2017, I was cleaning my writing notes and I found this. I read it and I really don’t know what to feel at this point. Given the climate in 2020. I come from a very diverse country, where respect was always prevalent. While I know peace is threatened in a lot of countries, but I never expected to ever experience something like this having moved to Toronto, another diverse city where everyone is nice. This story really didn’t need to happen. It’s trivial, yet people behave like this on a daily regular day.

December, 2017

I felt the need to share this because ffs we are in 2017 and still behaviour still prevail.

I was at my student job, a very popular retail brand. A woman insulted me today. Because we have policies that need to be respected. I didn’t make those up, I’m just the messenger. The policy we are talking about here, is to give the customer privacy while paying, and therefore the line starts 6 feet behind the cash point.

She started off loudly, but firm and said “I know the policy, don’t tell me about it. I’ve worked retail for 40 years”.

Seeing nobody paid attention to her, especially me, since I was busy with the customer still. She goes off, even louder. “an immigrant LIKE YOU working at this little job telling ME about policy? Don’t even know where you come from, telling me about retail? I’ve working retail for 40 years! I was born here!”.

I’ve never liked public outbursts. I’m a very private person. I was shocked, but I chose to ignore her at that point given that I had to cash her out anyway. It was a Thursday night and it was dead, I really didn’t want to escalate it with her.

It was now her turn in line. As I’m cashing her out, I needed to mention some other final sales policy (because I have to). She goes off again “Oh I know that” looking at other customers, hoping someone will agree with her in support her. I was calm and smiling, although I was feeling the pressure and uneasiness. I told her, “it’s my job to tell you that!”. Upon hearing me finally trying to stop her unjustified inappropriate rant. She stopped talking.

And then she goes off “Can I have your name?” I said yes, proudly showed her my name badge and I told her “Would you also like to talk to my manager?” She uttered a hesitant yes. I didn’t care. I knew my manager would defend me. She wasn’t the first disrespectful customer we had at this top retail brand.

I called my manager who had a huge smile. We’ll call her M. She thought it was nothing serious. Seeing how nice my manager was to me, she instantly changed her tone of voice; soft, scared, apologetic. She says, “Oh it’s nothing, I was just telling her that, you know, I know the return policy, she doesn’t need to tell me”.

It was at this point that it got to me. What was this behaviour? How was a grown woman behaving like a child and lying? That was gaslighting at its finest. How dare she? How could someone have such a change of tone and voice and play the victim? I was shocked. By that time, there was a line of 4–5 customers, they were truly shocked and appalled when the lady started speaking so nicely. Nobody talked backed.

After she was gone, I needed a moment to myself. My manager told me to go to the back if I needed to. M then told me the other customers had told her everything. She was really sorry. We didn’t speak much until the rest of the night.

It wasn’t the first time that it happened to me, but I wasn’t also never that bad. To hear the “immigrant” word.

I didn’t speak back at her because

1. I was at work

2. I do not engage into conversations with narrow minded people.

The next day, I came back to work. My manager told me, in situations likes this, I am not obligated to serve anyone who disrespects me. And apparently, the lady had also come back to our store in the morning. I only worked nights. I think she had some soul-searching and she probably realised she messed up. She wasn’t a customer of ours, she lived in a different city, they had sent her here because we had the items she was looking for. Also, her items were final sale, she really did not need to come to our store. Besides, she was not the ideal customer for our store, she had come to buy gifts for her grandchildren. So, yeah, I’m pretty sure she got hit by some cognitive dissonance and felt awful. You know how in criminal series they always say, “people like to go back to their crimes scenes”? that’s how I read into it.

To this day, I don’t understand why she felt empowered to insult me?

Was it because I worked “a small retail job?”

No, that couldn’t be it. She also did the same thing for 40 years.

(Btw, not to brag. But I had a full-time job at a software company.)

Was it because I had an accent?

For someone who was apparently born here, she had one too.

(Also, not to brag, but I speak 4 languages)

Was it because I was a POC?

She was one too.