I’m a white guy from a fairly non-diverse city. I was at a grocery store today where a cashier opened up their line to serve me and, I thought, the person behind me. As they were serving me, though, they put up their lane closed sign right in front of the black man behind me. The buy was just trying to purchase some tuna, bread, and peanut butter.
The cashier basically decided to serve me, a middle class white man, but refused to serve the black man behind me. I was so shocked that I didn’t say anything. It is possible that I misunderstood the situation but it seemed so blatant.
What should I have done in this situation? Should I have spoken up? Would that have just been more embarrassing for the man who was being discriminated against?
Honestly, I’m still just in shock to see someone treated so poorly when they were simply trying to buy food for themselves. I recognize that means that I’m sheltered but I also feel like I should be able to use my unearned privilege to help others who are being discriminated against.
Coming from my experience working in retail, unless the guy had Aryan Nation tats, more likely than not this guy was working in a severely understaffed store.
He was probably in the middle of doing a shitton of time sensitive tasks before he was interrupted by some bullshit manager that told him to help out with the checkout line and then get back to doing the million other things he needed to do before his shift was over.
He was probably doing the bare minimum to be able to say “yes, I helped out the checkout line like you said” before getting back to more important things.
Yeah, I’ve worked retail too and I don’t think I would have done this, even if I did have another task to complete.
This cashier’s lane light was on. They smiled at me, came to help, scanned my items, and let me pay. Then, rather than scanning the man’s six items, they put up their closed sign and walked away without saying a word while leaving their lane light on. It felt hostile and rude.
