Acknowledging The Racist Moment

I patronize several different Subway establishments in Sacramento and get to see how the clientele varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. This afternoon, I passed in front of one of these restaurants, but decided to visit the nearby MetroPCS store first: there was a line of customers inside Subway, and I hoped that the line would have time to clear first before I ordered.

Looking through the glass door, I could see that the last customer in the queue was a young African-American male, about age 22. He was dressed in the lamentable, but very fashionable way young men dress to impress young women: jeans slung so low over the hips that they looked like they would fall off, and a brilliant white sleeveless T-Shirt. His clothes were clean and nearly-new. Interestingly, he also had a rolling suitcase with him. He may have been a stranger to Sacramento.

So, passing by, I went into the MetroPCS store instead and asked "Are they really going to cut off my cell phone service because of this 38 cent charge?" They assured me not to worry: charges less than $3.00 simply get tacked onto next month's bill.

Returning to the Subway restaurant, the line of people had cleared, except for the young African-American man. I stood in line behind him, but he turned to me and said "Go ahead - I'm trying to get the woman's attention." He seemed to be upset: seething even.

The woman clerk behind the counter, older and Indian (from India) seemed flummoxed. As I got in the queue, she went to the back of the restaurant to get more help. The clerk in the back was reluctant to come out - he was apparently busy, probably doing something like cutting vegetables - but he came out to take my order. I started placing my order.

Just one problem: the young man in front of me was waiting in vain - he was not receiving service. The woman clerk was not taking his order. This suddenly felt quite creepy. So, in deference, I stopped placing my order and gave the young man the opportunity to place his order instead. With gritted teeth, the young man demurred and told me to complete my order. I said "OK, but you were first." So I finished placing my order.

The young man then asked the woman clerk to take his order. Waving towards the reluctant clerk, she indicated that he would take his order and she would collect the money. So, the ad hoc rule in this restaurant seemed to be 'I will take your money, but I will not make your sandwich.'

I didn't witness the beginning of this process and so I don't know if there had been some kind of friction before I entered the restaurant. From spending years as a customer of Subway, I know some customers treat the staff in an abusive way. Those people need to be hurled onto the sidewalk with maximum prejudice. Nevertheless, this didn't seem to be one of those moments: the customer was soft-spoken and successfully kept his anger under control.

Eating at this Subway before, I've noticed this clerk is very friendly, and perhaps even too quick to help me. I almost invariably carry the Wall Street Journal with me. Not that I often agree with the WSJ - the editorial pages are an adventure into the absurd - but the news pages are the best in the country. But the WSJ might label me to others as a serious businessman. The suitcase and the clothing, on the other hand, might have labeled the young man as an itinerant. Was that why the clerk got flummoxed when I got in line - a serious man was being kept from his serious business by this - this nobody? There was a clear divide in sex, age, and race between customer and clerk. Sure looked like a bit of racism to me. Or, if not pure racism, several other -isms combined together.

As the young man left the restaurant with his sandwich, he bade me a warm farewell, and I did likewise. I think he was grateful that I had at least witnessed what was going on, and that he was not alone in his apprehension that something was wrong, and that it wasn't just his imagination in overdrive.

As far as we have come in ameliorating racial prejudice in this country, we still have a ways to go.....