About that time a white lady cut me in line…

The other day, I went to a cafe that I visit every week to meet with other writers and get some work done. The cafe is in an overwhelmingly liberal area where there are more Black Lives Matter signs posted on front lawns than there are actual Black People. Which is to say: this is an area full of folks who REALLY want you to know they are GOOD white people.

I met my group at 5:30. We usually reserve the largest round table near the entrance, but we got our wires crossed (it was my fault — I didn’t call ahead) and our server came over around 6:15 to say the table had been reserved by a much larger group for 7pm.

We all said “fine! No big deal, we can move to another table.” But we had just been served several hot meals, and all had computers out, so we decided to stay for another 20 minutes, finish our food, and then move.

By 6:20, folks from the larger group started rolling in. Two of them approached our table, confused as to why we were there. We explained the situation and said we’d be moving shortly, all of us perfectly jovial and kind. They just looked at us like they were grossed out — the way you look when you smell a skunk — said “Oh…” Then picked up menus, and stepped into line to order.

Did I mention those people — the skunk-smellers — were older white people who appeared to be quite well off?

Did I even have to say that for you to picture them that way?

Anyway, shortly after this, my group did some team work to move to a smaller table across the room. It had to be team work, as there were only 5 of us with 5 laptops, 5 notebooks, 10 beverages and 6 plates of food. We helped each other, and we made it work.

Here’s where it starts to get interesting.

By 6:45, this quiet cafe had grown LOUD — the group that took over our table was only 12–15 people, but they were filling the room with their voices as they mingled in the line. Typing away happily at our new table, I’ve long since finished my first glass of wine, which I ordered one hour and fifteen minutes ago. But the line is almost out the door, full of visibly indecisive people staring at menus like they’ve got coded messages on them and chatting amongst themselves. Some are from the group who took our table; some are going to smaller, new tables; some are picking up coffees, cookies, and San Pellegrinos to go.

So I wait. I keep writing. I wait a solid 20 minutes before deciding to jump in line behind 4 or 5 others, as this is the shortest wait I’ve seen in 20 minutes. I have my empty wine glass. I am well-dressed. I have eaten, which I only mention to clarify that I was not anywhere near drunk. I think it would have been a stretch to call me “tipsy” even.

So I’m waiting behind a guy ordering at the counter; then two older white women who appear to be in their 50s-60s, dressed in luxe artsy garb, who present as stereotypical new england liberals (I mean no offense by this; I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would say the same about the way I dress, because I do love me an asymmetrical hemline). Then me. Then a white woman about my age (thirty-ish) who’s wearing her sunglasses indoors at 7pm, holding a reusable coffee mug and car keys, tapping her foot with impatience. Then some other people.

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but pretty soon it would come to my attention that I was the only brown skinned woman in the line, and in the whole cafe. More on that later.

I’m standing there, listening to the group at the large round table as they try to decide if they should keep this spot, or move outside to the patio, since it was so noisy in there. I was distracted, watching this conversation, mostly because I found the irony amusing. They were the ones making all the noise that they wanted to escape. They had displaced my group, and now they wanted to move somewhere else.

But whatever, I thought, it doesn’t matter. I’m just here to eat and drink and write and talk to my friends. This is supposed to be therapeutic “me time,” which is something I had to start making a point of scheduling a couple years ago in order to hold onto my sanity. I used to be the kind of girl who would vomit a little in the back of her mouth before she could actually say the words “me time,” but I don’t know, something shifted a while back. You know, roughly around November of 2016.

The woman behind me with sunglasses catches the attention of a cafe staff member who isn’t currently taking orders, but bussing. “Can I just grab a coffee real quick?” she asks in desperation, as though she doesn’t understand that lines are not meritocracies. I don’t take note of how her request is denied, but I assume it was polite and she understood, because she stayed there in line behind me, still tapping her foot and breathing short, sharp breaths of agitation.

Someone new walks in the door, a member of the big group. She is offered a nametag and given a quick explanation of the predicament — inside or outside — and a couple of people pipe up, saying they’re already seated, they might as well stay.

One group member calls out to the newly arriving woman “don’t worry, we can make room for you to sit over here.”

AND THEN

One of the two older white women standing in front of me calls past me and several others waiting behind her in line, to the woman who’s just walked in:

“Here!” she says generously. “You can cut in line here with us. Some guy cut in front of us earlier, so it’s fine.”

And the white woman who’s just arrived walks up and cuts in front of us.

The woman in sunglasses behind me says nothing, but I can feel her frustration radiating like hot air. I’m frustrated, too. This is precious time that I’ve scheduled to take care of myself and my needs as I have defined them.

So I say loudly and pointedly: “Okay!”

The woman who invited her friend to cut turns and glances at me with that same look. The I-just-smelled-something-icky look. Then turns back to her friend with the menu as though she didn’t hear me.

So I say, still fairly loudly, but not aggressively: “Wow, this is pretty ridiculous.”

And the white woman in sunglasses behind me scoffs: “Yeah, seriously.”

This is an important moment. Because you might not know this about me, but I am a brown biracial woman who has spent the majority of her life in white-dominated spaces, and it has taken a serious toll on my identity.

It has turned me into the kind of person who consistently begins her sentences with the word “sorry,” as though I need to apologize for having the audacity to speak without being invited to. It has turned me into the kind of person who always steps aside to make room for other people, who lets people speak over me, talk down to me, ignore me, insult me, and then blame me for somehow “forcing” them to behave this way. The type of girl who lets people bump into me as they walk past and doesn’t expect an apology.

It didn’t happen quickly or easily; anyone who’s known me a long time can bear witness. I’ve had a lot of fight in me since I was a little kid. I’ve always felt compelled to stand up for what is right even when it isn’t easy — or smart — to do so. But over the last two decades, I’ve learned how frequently and brutally I am likely to be punished for speaking out of turn, or saying things white people don’t want to hear. So I’ve been weakened; I’ve become more passive; I make excuses for white people; I turn a blind eye to my own suffering, because even I don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable questions my suffering asks of me, such as:

“Why do I deserve to be on the receiving end of this constant, casual cruelty?”

I’ve always hated white supremacy, but only in the past few years have I started actively resisting its power to brainwash. Working harder every day to be more conscious, to take note of these “little” displays of disrespect, to not write them off as “no big deal.” To not make excuses for white people.

On this particular day, I was feeling stronger than I have for a while. I’d had one glass of wine, which gave me a little confidence. But as sad as it is, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have said anything else if it weren’t for this white woman with the sunglasses, simply saying “yeah, seriously” under her breath. It was hardly any effort on her part. But she co-signed my message, and gave me permission to speak to this other white woman. So I went on.

I said: “So, you experienced an injustice, and you think the best way to deal with that is to pass the same injustice along to the rest of us?”

I felt eyes on me. The other people in line and at the table were intrigued now. The woman who had been invited to cut had slinked away silently, avoiding the drama that had been caused for her sake. The woman who had invited her to cut, loudly bragging about how entitled she felt to do so, rolled her eyes but did not look at me.

At this point, I guess I had expected someone else to speak up. I thought the woman in sunglasses might push them up to the crown of her forehead and say “yeah, seriously!” again, or maybe that a staff member would say something along the lines of: “Miss, I know you’re at least 50 and you should already know this, but here’s how lines work…”

But nobody said anything. The woman in front of me just kept looking at her menu, as though it hadn’t happened. And all the other white people around followed her lead, going quiet, turning away, not looking at me.

And this tactic *almost* worked on me again. Despite the fact that I made it my second full-time job this year to stay awake and conscious of these things, reading and listening and watching media that is focused on black empowerment and dismantling white supremacist attitudes, spending hours and hours in my therapists office where she repeatedly has to drill into my head the notion that I am worthy of equal treatment, and that I can speak without a white person having to give me permission.

Despite all of this, the collective silence in this room nearly convinced me that I was overreacting; that I was the rude one; that I was the problem.

And the thing is, it makes sense that I was almost convinced of this. This tactic wasn’t just employed by the people in that cafe line; it is used by white people collectively, as a whole, every single day. Even liberals. Even those who claim they are allies. Even those who claim they are my friends. This has been happening to me since I was ten, naive and optimistic. Time and time again, I have been dismissed by collective silence.

Sometimes, I think it’s a wonder I still even have a voice at all.

If I speak a little too loudly in the direction of a white person, either to defend myself, to defend other people of color or even to defend a white person, the issue isn’t whether or not my words hold water. The issue isn’t that I’m wrong.

The issue is that I spoke to them too directly, or too passively, or with too much articulation, or not enough, or that I didn’t give the target of my words the benefit of the doubt, didn’t give them enough time to spin up a story to defend themselves, didn’t wrap my criticism up in a sugary pink bow.

The issue is that they don’t want to hear anything from me other than praise, acceptance, and gratitude for the little attention they do sporadically pay me — when it’s convenient, or when they need something from me.

So when I speak up in a room or virtual space full of white people, I always know what’s going to happen. They will try not to hear me for as long as they can. And when I make it impossible for them not to hear me, they’ll just disengage. Hang up the phone; leave the room. Go quiet. Cry. Throw their hands up and say “I’m not your enemy here!” while still refusing to actually hear me. They always disengage. And for the thousandth time, I find I’m in a room full of strangers, or sometimes “friends,” and I am completely, totally alone.

This choreography feels so familiar, I could do the dance in my sleep.

To be fair, though… not everyone JUST disengages. Some white people seem to have an extra degree of entitlement that allows them to feel the best way to punctuate this experience is to first go quiet, let me worry for a few minutes that I’m delusional, and then, once everyone else has stopped paying attention, to whip out a stinging insult. It’s as though the silence is their way of putting me back in my place, and the insult to follow is their way of saying: “Good, now stay down there.”

This older white woman — the line-cutting apologist — was apparently just that type. After everyone stopped paying attention, and my cheeks were filling with hot blood, she turned back, literally looked me up and down, painted the fakest smile on her face, and said quietly: “I don’t think it’s really going to inconvenience you that much to let my friend order ahead of you.”

This wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A judgement. A ruling. An assumption about the value of my time in comparison to hers.

Apparently this woman had already forgotten how much it pissed her off when a man cut in front of her not five minutes beforehand.

What I said to her was: “Actually, I’ve been waiting for this line to die down for almost half an hour, so yes, it is an inconvenience.”

It was her turn at the front of the line, so she shrugged this off, stepped forward, took her sweet time ordering, and cafe life resumed as usual.

Honestly, though… if it hadn’t been for that stretch of collective silence — that moment where every white person around us had an opportunity to back me up, but instead looked away and left me hanging while I tried to defend ALL of our time from this entitled woman — THIS is what I would have said to her.

I would have said that in the past 24 hours alone, I’d spent almost every shred of energy in my body trying to stay calm in the face of white women who think they are my allies and “friends” but repeatedly treat me like I am some kind of stepping stool for their egos, careers, and love lives; like I am less than a fully realized human; like the standards that apply to them don’t apply to me for some mysterious reason.

I would have said that I’ve spent twenty years of my life letting white women literally and metaphorically cut in front of me in line, push me out of the way when there was plenty of space to move around me, pretend not to see me or hear me, and get away with it via lameass bullshit excuses like: “Oh I didn’t see you there!” or “Sorry, totally forgot we made plans!” or “I never got that text, so weird!” or “I’m just dealing with some stress, you don’t have to take it so personally.”

And I don’t want to hear it anymore. We all know these excuses are lies. Human beings see everything that’s in front of our eyes. We CHOOSE what to focus on.

I would have said that my time is just as fucking valuable to me as anyone else’s, and even if I want to use that time to guzzle pinot noir and dick around on the internet, THAT IS MY RIGHT, AND IT ISN’T YOUR PLACE TO MAKE ANY JUDGEMENTS ABOUT THAT AT ALL.

I would have said that if I were able to go back to the age of ten and take back all the time and energy that white women have stolen from me over the years simply because they felt entitled to it, I would be Serena Fucking Williams on Black Magic steroids right now.

I would have said that people like her, who think the best way to deal with injustice is to pass it on to someone they deem less important than themselves — these people are exactly what’s wrong with this sad misshapen lump of selfish capitalist greed we call a country.

And I would have said that people like me are NOT putting up with it for another single fucking day.

I would have parroted the brilliant and beautiful Maxine Waters, and told her in no uncertain terms, that from here on out, I will be “reclaiming my time.”

… But the sad truth is, I felt self-conscious, and I said nothing. Over the last two years, I’ve lost a lot of my “friends” and it’s been deeply painful. I don’t like to be isolated, but I felt I had no choice. I had to give up on them when I realized they would sooner try to convince me I had a mental illness, rather than admit that maybe they hadn’t been the greatest allies. I explicitly asked these “friends” to work on displaying solidarity, and they still couldn’t stand up for me. So why would any of these strangers?

Different music, different dance partners. Same old choreography.

That night at the cafe, I was exhausted, and nobody wanted to back me up. Even after I defended her position in this queue, the lady in sunglasses didn’t say “thank you” or offer any other gesture of encouragement or solidarity. She didn’t even look at me. Which, to be honest, is what I expected. The person working behind the counter, who witnessed all of this AND has served me enough times that we usually share witty banter while I order? She didn’t look at me, either. She just found other places to fix her gaze while she poured my second glass and charged me.

This happened three days ago. I’d like to say I am busy enough or mature enough, or whatever it is that allows people not to be bothered by this kind of thing, to have let it go. But that would be a lie. Don’t get me wrong, I’m STUPID busy right now; I run my own business, and this is a fast-paced, successful season for me. I’ve taken on several new responsibilities this summer. I don’t have much spare time to write ten-page diatribes about the time a white lady cut me in line, especially since it’s a fairly regular occurence.

But the reality is, I can’t force this stuff out of my head, even when I have more important things to focus on, because it happens every single day. Often multiple times a day. It comes from strangers, but also from people that I once thought loved me. And all I can do in the space of one day is heal from a small fraction of that hurt, so these “little” things add up and become enormous distractions. Sometimes, the weight of all these “little” things adds up to the point that I struggle to get out of bed in the morning, or into bed at night.

These “little” things become loud booming voices in my head that tell me to dull my own shine so I won’t intimidate people, that make me less productive when I try to tackle my own goals, and worst of all, convince me that I deserve this pain. That I am rude. That I am the problem. And that I should continue to apologize for existing.

I’m doing the work to change; to learn how to tell that voice in my head to shut up. That’s my responsibility and I own it. But still, as much as it kills me to admit it, I know my life, my suffering, would be significantly easier to manage if there were just a few more of those ladies with the sunglasses out there to say “Yeah, seriously,” after I, or other women of color, speak the truth.

I find this sad, because it is asking for the bare minimum of effort from those who, one would imagine, have the most time, energy, and financial resource to throw at the problem of white supremacy. Imagine if I was allowed to ask even more of my white “allies”? If there were a few more white people in that cafe who would be willing to actually step outside of their apathetic comfort zones, and say: “Yeah, seriously. She’s right. This is ridiculous. Why do you feel entitled to cut in front of her, or any of us? We all just heard you say it, with no shame. And that attitude is not acceptable.”

Lately, I can just feel the palpable discomfort amongst the white women who I used to hang with. They know I’m disappointed, or angry, or just generally unenthusiastic about seeing them anymore. And most of them will never ask me why that is. If they do ask, they will likely be more invested in protecting their egos and shutting me down than actually hearing me out. And they’ll punish me with silence, or sometimes insults, for making them feel like they *might* be part of the problem.

So if you’re one of those people who used to feel a lot of love from me, or other women of color, and then suddenly it stopped… maybe it’s time to ask yourself: Are you being the ally who steps forward and says “That attitude is not acceptable”?

Or are you the lady in the sunglasses, who accepted my help but couldn’t take the heat when push came to shove, and didn’t thank me, because at the end of the day, she still just saw me as someone standing between her and her emergency coffee?

Are you one of the many onlookers who found other things to look at and pretended not to see me?

Or… are you the entitled woman who cut in front of me in line, bragged about it, and then told me I didn’t have a right to be bothered, because my life and my time aren’t as important as hers?

When you coerce me into silence, you force me to take a step back and observe your behavior without distraction. So I know which one you are.

The question is: Do you?