Before And After: Christmas Shopping While Black

You’re in that joyful mood of the festive season, but a few microaggressions later, you're emotionally drained

Christmas shopping is meant to be fun right? Especially this year since one has to queue up for hours to get into stores due to the pandemic. Well, for me a black woman, Christmas shopping proved to be yet another painful experience. Mind you, I did a lot of my shopping online just to remove the pain of a racist encounter, but, yesterday, I realized there were a few gifts missing so off to the stores I went.

After a relatively long time queuing outside, I was let into an Ali Baba’s cave of hundreds of potential gifts to buy. I walked around evaluating my options, asking myself if such and such a person would appreciate this or that gift. I paused at the Dyson vacuum cleaner display, fascinated by a video showing the tornado-like aspiration power of these colorful high tech brooms. A sales lady came up to me:

“How can I help you?”

I had no intention of buying one of these highly-priced objects and didn’t want her to waste her time trying to convince me.

“Oh I’m just browsing, I don’t need any help”, I responded politely.

The sales lady still stood there.

“So this is how it works, ” she insisted, removing one of the vacuum cleaners from the display.

“Thanks, Madame, I’m not looking to buy …..”

“Why can’t you people be damn appreciative”, she blurted out.

I looked at her, my face registering an uneasy surprise.

“I don’t need a vacuum cleaner”, I insisted politely.

“So why are you looking here? Even if you did want one, I don’t have any in stock anyway, and I’m sure that if I did, you couldn’t afford it”, she said furiously before stomping off.

I was stunned. How had this situation escalated so quickly? I felt an all too familiar anxiety building in the pit of my stomach. I was yet again a victim of a microaggression, but I was going to try hard to not let it ruin my day.

Here we are, almost 18 hours after that whole episode, and I’m even writing about it. That just goes to show that microaggressions hurt and negatively impact you. I’m not sure I’ll be buying a Dyson vacuum cleaner anytime soon. Their brand is now linked to a form of trauma in my mind.

No sooner than had I left that store, I went to pick up a video game I had ordered. I had prepaid it and had the invoice in hand. The game cost USD 50.

“Are you sure you’re the one who ordered the game?” asked the salesman.

“Yes, I did. I ordered it at 7 pm last night. Here is the receipt”.

He peered at it suspiciously. I noticed the game sitting on a chair behind him.

“There it is, the game is there”, I pointed.

“But I can’t be sure it’s yours. I’m going to need your ID”, he said, emphasizing ID.

“But I just gave you the receipt which is what your website said I should show to get my order”.

“Well, I'm not giving you the game without seeing your ID, that’s all there is to it”.

I couldn’t deal with the confrontation that lay ahead and pulled out my ID.

“Are you sure you paid for it? Can I see the debit card you used?”

“Sir, all your website says is that I should show this paper, the one you have in your hand, to get the product. It doesn’t say I need to show ID and the card I used to pay for it. Now there are many people waiting in line. Either you give me the game or we can call your supervisor and discuss this matter further”.

“You’re going to have to sign here if you want me to give you the product. That way you don’t come back and try to claim another one”.

I was stunned, a second microaggression in the space of a few hours. Again another painful experience. My white husband was furious when I related the experience back to him. He wanted to return to the store and give them a piece of his mind. I couldn’t be bothered.

In French, they say «Jamais deux sans trois» or things always happen in series of 3. I knew I’d be entitled to my third racist encounter of the day when I entered the perfume store. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the not so discreet security guard notice me as I entered. He started following me. I went towards the perfume testers to smell some of this year’s fashionable scents. He kept staring at me, analyzing my every move.

A bunch of rowdy white teenagers entered the store, they were horsing around boisterously, their laughter ringing loudly in my ears. I watched them, admiring their unapologetic manifestations of happiness. All of a sudden, I saw one of the white girls plop a perfume bottle into her pocket. They continued to laugh, moved towards the exit, and left. The security guard was still observing me without a clue of what had just happened. As I myself approached the exit, he asked to see what was in my handbag. He thought that I had stolen something. I opened it un-obligingly. He took a look inside and ushered me toward to exit.

I felt mentally and emotionally drained and decided like I do most years, that I had had enough Christmas shopping/ racist encounters for the day.

I must admit that given the pandemic, I have had less racist encounters this year than at any other time in my adult life. I think that one de-climatizes from racism when one is not subject to it. It is actually possible to forget that racism exists if one isn’t subject to it day in day out.

So while 2020 has been a year of immense suffering for the 1.5 million people that have died of Covid 19 and their friends and families, for some black peoples living in white societies, it has been a year with less exposure to racism. That absence of racism has made for a better quality of life despite lockdowns.

To some of my white friends, this comes as a surprise. They say:

“Oh come on, nothing can be worse than a lockdown”.

My response is:

“Oh yes there is. Racism is definitely much worse than a lockdown, especially when you encounter it every single day of your life”.

Thanks a lot for reading my perspective. Merry Christmas to all my amazing readers.