“God, I Hope this is a ‘Nice White Lady.’”
October 19, 2016: Pumping gas off MLK tonight — presidential debate insults bursting through my car windows — I stood there in the rain thinking, Maybe I shouldn’t put myself through another one of these.
A young mother and her 4-year-old daughter nervously walk up to me. I smile, but now Drumpf is loudly confusing C-sections with abortion, screaming about ‘ripping babies out of wombs.’ God, he’s clueless. I’ve got my stereo too loud. I don’t want this little girl to even have to hear his voice. No one at this gas station needs to hear this.
The mother cautiously asks if she can use my phone, trying her best to be calm in explaining how hers was stolen. The gas station cashier found her phone after she accidentally left it on the counter, and he gave it to someone else, no questions asked.
Fighting years of cultural norming that insists I politely decline to help, I reach in my car, aggressively turn off the garbage debate and grab my phone.
She called her phone a dozen times while I went into the gas station and asked for the manager to see what happened, who took it and where did they go. Minutes earlier, staff wouldn’t even let her use the shop phone to try and call hers, but me, a white woman in business attire, I get the manager’s personal cell phone number when I ask to speak to him.
She calls her phone a 13th time, and finally a drunk white dude answers on the other end. He’s already made it up the steep hill with her phone, but agrees to give it back if she hurries. It’s raining so we buckle the little one in my car and drive up the steep South Seattle hill.
“Do you have a daughter?” the little girl asks from the center of the back seat, assuming I have a little buddy around.
“What did I tell you? Don’t ask for money from anybody!” the stressed-out mom misunderstands her little one’s question.
“No daughter yet, but I have a fish!” I quickly chime in. That makes her laugh. “Oh, do you you have cousins?” she asks. “Too many to count,” I brag. We go on to chat for 10 minutes in the car while her mom tries to convince these phone grabbers to give her lifeline back. They do, but not without demanding a hug from her first. Come ON, men!
Driving back down the hill to their apartment, I answer more questions from the chipper 4-year-old, and mom breathes a huge sigh of relief. She tells me, “When I first saw you, I was praying that you would be a nice white lady. You can go home knowing you did a good deed today.”
I would later go home thinking, damn, the courage she had in just asking for help. I let that sink in… Praying for a nice white lady.
The little girl unbuckles, gives me a hug goodbye saying, “I know you don’t have a daughter yet, but tell her someday that I said, ‘Hi!’ Oh, and tell your fish I said, ‘Hi!’ too!”
What a sweetheart. What a team. Way better way to spend an evening than listening to the debate.
To all my white ladies, we have to work harder on being the nice kind.