A news story made the rounds last week about a black mom on the East Coast going off on a white woman at Target for invading her daughter’s personal space and reaching over her to grab an item off the shelf. Now I don’t completely agree with how she reacted, but I completely understand why she did what she did. Not only did the other woman completely invade her daughter’s personal space, but it was as if the little girl was all but invisible to her. And that’s a feeling I know well.
I was always under the impression that manners and saying “excuse me” when you need to pass someone or step in their personal space was Southern thing. It was something I was taught growing up, and a lesson that I’ve carried on into adulthood. But I’m now realizing that that lesson isn’t one that’s taught to everyone. I’m not sure if it’s a privilege thing, or if it’s related to entitlement but I’ve noticed more and more that some people just don’t give a damn and will expect everyone to accommodate them in all situations.
In fact, I found that after speaking with black women in particular we quite often make ourselves small in situations. We’ll play Frogger in a hallway or skywalk to accommodate others, not wanting to be in anyone’s way. But why? We have just as much right to be in those spaces as everyone else! We don’t need to hug the wall just because someone else doesn’t want to change their path; I can channel Stevie Wonder if they want to channel Helen Keller.
And say what you want, but I truly believe that it’s a microaggression. I’m usually by myself when it happens, but it’s happened twice recently when I was with my manager at work. Once was last week when we were walking side-by-side (and there was still plenty of room in the skybridge) and someone made a comment about us parting for people to cut through us, and I quickly said that they can go around us if they were in that much of a hurry. We weren’t walking at a glacial pace and we had just as much right to be in that hallway as anyone else. My manager was a bit uncomfortable then, but what happened today really triggered me.
Four of us were grabbing lunch at the pop-up restaurant (today was soul food from Mikki’s) when an older woman decided that she wanted to split up our group. She sped up and got in between our party in line. She waited until we were in the middle of our conversation, and interrupted us with “I think I should cut y’all since you added 2 people to your party”. We didn’t “add” anyone to our party, we literally walked up together, but her entitlement got the best of her so I put on a nice-nasty sorority voice and was like “SURE IF THAT’S WHAT YOU FEEL IS BEST. WE WALKED UP TOGETHER BUT GO AHEAD “. I don’t know if she was expecting us to be docile or what, but she was no more important than anyone else in the line, and by “skipping” us she only shaved 2 minutes off of her time.
My response must have startled her because she meekly responded with “I’m late for a meeting”, and I wanted to say “well that sounds like a personal problem”, but I decided to keep it cute because I was still at work. I was triggered at that moment and I’m tired of having to deal with entitled and privileged folks acting like other people either don’t exist or are beneath them.
So I will continue to make my presence known, take up space and correct them when they come at me the wrong way.