I was working at the front desk a while ago when a man that I've helped before came up to me with a reference question. I answered his question, and he thanked me profusely, telling me, as he had before, that I have a really good attitude. I found it strange that he kept telling me this, since I work with the public and it seems like I'd better have a good attitude if I want to do my job well.
You know when you
know that something's wrong with someone, but you just want to give them the benefit of the doubt so they will hurry up and get the hell out of your face? I knew what he was up to, and I was trying to keep the smile on my face. But he hadn't yet finished showing me just how dumb he was, so the next thing out of his mouth was "I bet you have a lot of white people in your family." I kid you not.
Because I was trying to keep that good customer service going (and because I'm a good Black girl who has been taught to take pity on those less mentally blessed than myself), I said, "There are a couple." Which is true. There are a couple. Not counting the people who probably raped my ancestors, there are a couple of white people who have married into my family - because they were smart enough to know a good thing when they saw it, and to admit it publicly. But I don't consider that a compliment, though I know that's how he meant it. And the fact that he meant it as a compliment absolutely does not keep me from being completely offended by it. It's as if he was saying that I couldn't possibly have a good attitude, answer his questions correctly and give him good customer service if I didn't have white ancestors to offset all the negative blackness in me. Please.
I just had to share this with you because of course this happened in the "liberal bastion" of Berkeley. (At least, according to Berkeley residents.) I swear, I am tired of hearing Northern Californians tell me I must have had a hard time getting used to it out here. Why? Because everyone in CT is so conservative-not true, or because it takes two and a half times the money to live here that it does in CT--now that
is true. I am tired of hearing how they didn't think any Black people lived in New England (so where did me, my mother, her family, my father, his family, my sisters and a bunch of our friends come from?), or hearing that where I'm from isn't diverse (when all you've done is drive through my home state on your way to a vacation spot), or that they aren't surprised about ignorant comments or actions I might tell them about that I encountered before I came out here, because, of course, that was in Connecticut. This self-congratulatory attitude that I've run into here about how liberal and diverse everything is here is just too much.
There's a lot that's cool here, don't get me wrong, but the Bay Area is by no means paradise, and Connecticut isn't evil just because your only view of it is the TV view: big-ass mansions and snobby people riding horses. If I had a big-ass mansion in Connecticut, don't you think I would have stayed there? Long story short, California has it's share of conservatives and no shortage of racists too, even here in the Bay Area.
