“A man shouts racial slurs in a Seattle Starbucks. The silence is deafening”
“My awareness of the incident, as I later explained it to the police officer who took my statement, started with me realizing that my right hand was wet.
We were in a Starbucks and there was lots of liquid around. My cortical brain told me that most likely someone spilled something. But then, I heard someone behind me say something that sounded like, “fucking nigger bitch.”…
He went outside and stood at the window yelling more comments that we could not hear and finally walked away down the street.
As he stood at the window, my brain started to make sense of things. I realized the liquid I felt on my hand was his spit. He had spit at my colleague, as it turned out, twice…
on reflection a few hours after the incident, more than that young man’s actions were disturbing to me. This was a very public act in a very small space. Everyone at that café heard the incident and many saw it. However, only one patron came up after the incident.
In a post-racial world, there’s no silence. Even if you can’t directly act, you take a stand to support those who are assaulted, like the woman who volunteered to be a witness, or the manager who took action.”
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS. Bystanders.
In my life, I have repeatedly been disappointed by the way that non-black friends have failed to react, have defaulted to a state of I guess denial and politeness?
I am doing a thing where I try to actively let friends know (friends with oppressed identities) that I will be there to use my privilege for them in these kinds of situations.
Because really, the things that cause me the longer traumas are the memories of how the people around me abandoned me in that moment of need.
And as long as people don’t think that they are responsible for the safety of their loved ones, how can we be confused by police officers who don’t think they are responsible for the safety of black people?
Related: “What Goes Through Your Mind: On Nice Parties and Casual Racism”, “That awkward moment when I realized my white “liberal” friends were racists”, “On Institutional Silence and the Status Quo”
