Hello again!
It’s been a minute I know. Not my longest Hiatus which is good, I don’t want to neglect this blog. I know I tend to have a lot of things I want to do at the same time, so I lose focus, but writing needs to stay in the forefront. Yes, needs.
Yesterday was a bad day for me…Well, an annoying day. I have definitely had worse days, but yesterday rubbed me the wrong way.
It was a mix of jealousy with a sprinkle of unintended racism. Most of today’s blog will be tied to the hint or racism, but I will vent one more time about the other stuff briefly.
So May is looking like it will be a hectic month for my job, one of the managers quit, one is going to Japan for about 2 weeks, some other staff will be on medical leave, another one is also quitting, the first week of May the owner is going to Mexico, needless to say there is a lot going on. Meanwhile in my world I am doing my best to pay down debt (which shot up about $8k because we had to get a new furnace) and I feel stuck and under appreciated in my current position. I desperately need a vacation out of the midwest, but right now it doesn’t seem to be in the cards and it sucks. It is a new day however, and I am thankful that I woke up this morning, surrounded by some of my loved ones (wife and cats), in our house. I was able to have breakfast before work which allows me to pay those bills I dread, but also puts food on the table, money in my pocket, and sometimes splurge on myself. Don’t misunderstand, for as much as going to Japan before I die is a dream for me, and I would love to be able to monetize my passions (writing, streaming and art) I am still thankful and grateful for the good in my life.
Now for the other part of yesterday, oh boy.
At the end of our managers meeting the owner and another manager told us all about an incident that happened at one of the locations. The cliff notes version, there was an altercation between two families that stemmed from a misjudgment and misunderstanding and the manager had to mediate one party mentioned race. It escalated to a shouting match and both were threatened to be tossed out if they didn’t bring it down. They calmed down and left and it was assumed everything was all good. The next day the man came in and told the manager that they had run into each other outside, talked and parted ways amicably, but the lady left a review on our business saying we weren’t African-American “friendly”. The owner then shows me the review on her phone and leaves the phone near me, and as the only black manager it has now become my issue to mediate between the woman who felt wronged and the business, and I have a problem with that.
Firstly the small nuances. When the manager was re-telling this story she whispered that she was a black lady, indicating she wasn’t entirely comfortable pointing out the woman’s ethnicity. But she further went on to basically pantomime this woman with exaggerated head and neck movements, adjust the twang in her voice, and spoke much louder; yet when she reenacted “herself” or the other party her voice was calmer and less dramatic even though the man was also yelling.
The second thing that was a smaller nuanced annoyance was that basically the manager and owner directed all this to me. Let me explain, you know when you talk to people your body is usually pointed towards them and if you are talking to a group your body is in a neutral position but your head or eyes may scan the people you are talking to? Well for this I was the focal point even though the meeting consisted of 4 managers and the owner, so that was uncomfortable. Even outside of this situation I do not like to be the center of attention, when I stream on twitch I don’t show my face, when I write and you read it we are separated by both time and distance. I don’t fully know why (though I have some ideas) but being the “center of attention” actually causes me anxiety.
Back to the situation at hand, so I felt weird that this incident wasn’t racially motivated (as far as we know) but to prove that my company isn’t racist they are having the Black manager tell the black lady “Hey we aren’t racist, why would you say that?” To me that is the equivalent of “I’m not racist, I have a Black friend,” which usually sounds a wee bit racist. It makes/made me feel like I am the token Black for the office, and it sucks because I already feel like that in my friend groups.
Growing up many of my friends were from many backgrounds, but my closest nerdy school friends were two White kids, one Mexican kid, and a Black kid. I have always been around different ethnicities, genders, and orientations but looking at my current close knit friend group, it’s mostly white. Is that good or bad? I honestly don’t know, but it is lonely. Now I do have a friend who is mixed (Black & Puerto Rican) but he is a bit of a special case, we’ve been friends since highschool, we know each other’s families and may as well be family from all the shit we’ve been through so when I talk about my friend group I don’t include him or his wife, we are family. If either of us had weddings we would have been each other’s best man. Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends like family, and I do consider them family too, but we have a different bond.
When I relayed my feelings to my wife I told her something I don’t remember if I ever mentioned to her, about how I will poke fun at myself racially, because I’d rather it come from me than my friends, but it still does. And sometimes it really bugs the shit out of me, but I have lost so many friends due to time, distance, and incidents, that I don’t really want to lose more because of what they feel is harmless joking. So yeah now I feel like a token at work, and outside of work and that really sucks. I used to have another black friend who had a similar struggle that I did, but he ended our friendship over BS I won’t get into. Some days I miss the understanding he brought, but it’s been easier living without him. My non-black friends usually seem oblivious to a lot, the looks, the comments, etc If it’s not blatant racism it flies below the radar.
There are still some planned blogs about color/racial/ethnic dynamics in reference to society as a whole, but this incident really brought that to the forefront. If the company I work for doesn’t want to seem racist then the owners should reach out and make that woman feel comfortable in their business, they shouldn’t rely on me because I’m Black, rely on me because I know how to talk to people, rely on me because I am a “separate party”, but not because we are both Black, because guess what, on the phone you can’t tell what I am.
Welp, friends, this is the end for today.
I love you.
Drink some water.
Go touch grass.
Later days.
~ Owl
The World Through My Eyes 