Thursday, March 22, 2018

Seen and Unseen

I love going to the supermarket. All those apples and peppers and bananas and eggs. All that bread and cheese and tea and kombucha. So much to choose from. I am enormously grateful that I get to go to the supermarket and buy what my family needs - and more than that, to buy many of the things we want. What a gift. What a blessing.

My favorite local supermarket is the Trader Joe's that is just over a mile from our house. Over the past few years, we have thought about selling our home and downsizing, moving out of the suburbs, out of our rather insulated neighborhood, closer to where there is more activity here in Charlotte, closer to uptown, closer to we go to church. But one of the main things that holds us back is that we love how convenient it is for us to get to Trader Joe's.

There is a man who works at Trader Joe's, an African man, whose country of origin and name I cannot recall (my memory is fading day by day). He is one of the friendliest people I know. It seems like every time I am in the store, he will come over and say hello. He asks how my husband is doing and how our children are doing. And he readily shares that his children are growing up, eating more and more every day. I remind him that he's working in the right place to solve that problem! When I am shopping in the store and he is working in the store, I know that I am seen.

This morning, as I walked through the store, sure enough, he greeted me. Warmly. What a kind man.

This morning, as I walked through the store, sure enough, I was reminded that I am sometimes unseen. Or perhaps seen and unseen.

As I scanned the shelves with the baking items - sugar, vanilla, flour, but no sweetened condensed milk - I noticed that a woman a few feet away looked at me - and then she turned and grabbed her purse out of her carriage. Once she found what she was looking for, she put it and her purse back into the carriage, and then she walked away.

I would imagine that she wouldn't consider herself to be racist. Or ignorant. Or blind.
But she looked directly at me. She saw me. She saw brown skin. She saw short hair.
She decided that her purse and its contents were not safe in my proximity, and so she grabbed it.

She saw me. At the same time, she was blind to me.
She knew nothing about me, other than what her eyes saw.
And she reacted to that by protecting her stuff.

To be fair, I am making all kinds of assumptions about what she saw and thought.
But I know what I saw and what I thought.
I saw her act in an offensive, hurtful, insulting manner towards me.

I was soooooooo tempted to ask her why she did what she did: what prompted her to remove her purse from the carriage at exactly that moment? It had to be me, because as soon as she moved away from me, she put it back into her carriage - but again, that's my assumption.
I was soooooooo tempted to tell her that she didn't have anything I wanted or needed.
But I said nothing.
I walked away. Angry.
Seen and unseen.

Two aisles later, a man and two children approached me. The man and the older child with him were each pushing shopping carts. The child wasn't paying attention to where he was going and steered his cart in my direction. I stopped so that he would have room to redirect his cart and go past me. The boy looked up at me and apologized for almost hitting my cart. The man spoke to the child, "Watch where you're going, _______ (once again, I can't remember what name he spoke.) We need to let this gentleman pass."

What? Me? I am no gentleman. I literally laughed out loud.
Like the woman I had encountered only moments before, the man saw brown skin.
He saw short hair. But he did not see me.
I'm wearing five earrings. FIVE!
I know that men wear earrings, but they don't usually wear dangling earrings in both ears.
And even if I weren't wearing all these earrings, I want to believe that my face looks like the face of a woman. My body, flat chested though I am, is the body of a woman.
I am a woman - and those _____________ almost heard me roar at Trader Joe's today.
I give the children credit because both of them did something of a double take when the man, who I assume was their father, said what he said.
I am most definitely NOT a gentleman.
Once again, I said nothing.
Once again, I walked away. Angry.
Seen and unseen.


I came home and I knew that I had to write about those two incidents.
About being seen and unseen.
I was angry. I'm still angry.

But after a few deep breaths and a few choice words thrown around in my kitchen as I unpacked my groceries, it hit me.
How often do I do the same thing?
How often do I encounter people and not see them?
Or see them and make assumptions about them based on the most superficial criteria?

How often do I make assumptions about the relationships between people when I see them together? Parents and children? Spouses? Friends? Lovers? Co-workers? How can I possibly know?

How often do I misgender people?
How often do I make assumptions about people's sexual identity and expression?
Just a few moments ago, I wrote that I have the face and the body of a woman.
What does that even mean? What kinds of assumptions do I need to make in order to even write that?

How often do I assume that people who "look Latino" are in fact Latino and that they want to speak in Spanish? What does "Latino" even mean?
How often do I assume that people who "look Asian" were not born in the United States?
How many times have I asked people, "Where are you from?"

How often have I assumed that people in wheelchairs need my help?

How often do I assume that white people in pick up trucks are racist members of the NRA?

How often does my heartbeat rise when I see a police car approach?
How often do I check to see if the car that has been stopped by the police or highway patrol is driven by a person of color?

How often do I assume racist, sexist, classist motives for the things people say and do in my presence? 

And how many times have my assumptions about the people around me offended or angered them?


I got my ego handed to me once outside of that very same Trader Joe's a few months ago.
I approached a young woman who was bald and asked her if she was in treatment for kanswer.
Before she even answered, I told her that I had had kanswer too, and I wished her well in her treatment.
She thanked me for my concern, explained she had alopecia, but she said she was glad that I am on the other side of the kanswer journey. Ouch!

On a retreat in Kanuga last November, I insisted on helping a woman with her suitcase because I had made an assumption that she wasn't able to handle it herself. She had packed and transported that suitcase without my help. She had traveled there from thousands of miles away without my help.  But I assumed that, because her body didn't look like my body (as though my body is a standard!) she needed my help. I still cringe when I think about how proudly I displayed my ableist prejudice. I wrote her a note and apologized for my idiocy. I hope she has forgiven me.


I will leave my home in the not too distant future and head to a small town outside of Charlotte to watch my beloved son play tennis. He is one of the brightest lights in my life, and I thoroughly look forward to seeing him and hugging him and watching him on the tennis court. As I drive south and east, however, I will pay attention to the assumptions I make about the people I see in the cars and trucks around me. I will try to notice how quickly I decide about the origins of the people I see, the worth of the people I see, the intelligence of the people I see, the socio-economic status of the people I see.


I hope and pray that I will be just as angry at my own habit of "seeing and not seeing" the people around me as I was about being seen and unseen in Trader Joe's this morning.

4 comments:

Linda Bannan said...

Gail, thank you for this powerful and insightful essay. The phrase “enlightened awareness” will help me remember the important lessons here. I hope to see you at Kanuga again this year!

Unknown said...

Girlfriend, I’m always so thankful for your words of wisdom. You are so self-aware!

GailNHB said...

Linda, thank you for that phrase "enlightened awareness." That is one that I will journal about and ponder.

Suzy, thank you for your support. I'm trying to get more and more self-aware. There's so much inside me that I need to become more aware of and beware of.

CarolynLee said...

Thank you for sharing this, Gail. You are a "Shining light" to all who know you, and I am so thankful for your thoughtful observations and words of wisdom!