Fallon Deatherage-Bradley
News Editor
I had a near-perfect summer if you can forget about two incidents that soured it.
The first was when a neighbor called the sheriff when he saw me driving home. Later, when I asked why he felt the need to call law enforcement after observing me driving on a public road, he explained that he assumed I was a Mexican involved with distributing illegal drugs (to be fair there has been drug distributing activity in the neighborhood previously but he came up with the racial reasons on his own).
The second incident happened at a hardware store. I walked around looking for what I needed and noticed a store employee had followed me and kept a close eye on my every move. This is not the first time this has happened to me in a store. I know when someone thinks I’m a shoplifting risk.
When I located the product I needed, I turned to ask the employee for help. My requests for assistance were ignored.
So, I lifted that large item into my cart and got ready to head to the register. At that time, a store employee grabbed my wrist and told me I had to pay for the item. I assured him I was aware of how basic retail operated, but he still insisted on escorting me to the register.
I’m used to subtle episodes of prejudice. I’ve been accused of shoplifting before. I’ve had people use racial slurs directed at me. I guess what made these incidents different was the fact that they were so invasive. It was impossible to ignore. There are people who will look at me and make assumptions. Assumptions that are rarely true (comically, prejudiced people rarely can assume my race accurately).
I’m proud of my heritage, warts and all. I think everyone should be proud of their heritage. For me, it’s the same amount of pride in my white heritage as my Filipino heritage.
I’ve had people criticize me for that by saying I should pick one and drop the other. In the past, I let those criticisms cause me to struggle with my racial identity. I’m over that now. I’m a mixed race American, and gosh dangit, I’m proud!
The experiences I had this summer shouldn’t have bothered me. Why should I let someone else’s implicit bias bother me? I’m a proud woman, so why did the whole thing make me feel bad?
I know those folks probably had no idea those episodes would affect me the way they did. I think that’s why I chose to write this. It’s common to never think about how our prejudices make other people feel.
Sometimes I can giggle about it. If only these people knew what a goody-goody I’ve always been.
The thought of doing anything illegal terrifies me. I find these people ridiculously funny for thinking I could be someone who tries to shoplift in a hardware store. For someone to think I could be involved in drug distribution is laughable so much so that my family jokingly started calling my benign Ford sedan “El Chapo.”
But humor is just a way to cope with the anger that’s bubbling below the surface. I’m angry that a neighbor would think of me as anything other than a lawful citizen. I’m angry that in a hardware store I’m watched attentively, but no one will help me.
I’ve never been the victim of racial based violence. What I face is minimal compared to people all over the world and even in our own country. This is not meant to be my own personal pity party.
No. I’m writing this to provide just a glimpse of the feelings of someone who’s been racially profiled.
I wish I had a solution. I wish it were as simple as just “don’t be racist”, but it’s not.
If the solution were that simple the problem would have been solved long ago. That being said, I feel that I have to provide some call to action or what was the point of all my rambling?
I’m not asking you to devote your entire life to social justice. All I challenge you to do is to examine the biases you hold, because we all have them. Examine them and then make the choice to be better.
