A funny thing happened in Lane Bryant
Apr. 9th, 2013 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fatesfollyA co-worker wears this really cool skirt that's really a black tennis skort. She looks very summery while still being business casual. A couple of years back, I asked her where she got them and she said they were Nike tennis skorts. Knowing Nike apparel runs small, I thanked her and never pursued it. Last week, she visited me in my office and told me that since she had gained weight, she could no longer wear the Nike skort and that she had found one at Lane Bryant. "COOLIO!" I said and promptly ordered one for me. I chose the free shipping option where they ship the item to the local store. Over the weekend, they notified me that it was in.
Yesterday was my birthday and I took the day off from work. It was a ME day. And so somewhere around late morning, I toodled over to Kingstowne to pick up my skort. I pulled into the parking lot and spied a car coming out of a space. I lined up my car in the row and waited for her to maneuver her land barge out of the space. As soon as she cleared the space, this little black Infinity came around the opposite corner and pulled into the space. Ooooooo this burned my butt. I pulled around to the other side and parked a few spaces further down. I had to walk past her car to get to the store and when I did, I noticed she was still sitting in the car with the engine on and texting. As I passed by her window, I said, "Well that was a bitch thing to do!" and kept walking.
So I go inside and wait at the counter. I give my name and it takes a while for the sales girl to get my package. Once I sign for it, I asked if I could try it on in the dressing room. She said sure and helped me find a dressing room. Now I'm doing all this at a leisurely pace. I get the skort on, it looks decent and I wonder if they have any cute tops to go with it so I head back out to the sales floor with the skort on.
I slowly make my way to the front corner of the store when this large woman blocks my path and says, "Did you call me a bitch?" I'm taken aback, having mostly forgotten about it since it had been at least 10 minutes prior and being a little shocked at having someone acost me. I figured out pretty quickly who she was and I said, "Why yes, I did." You stole my parking place that I had been waiting for." She said she had seen the woman pull out of the spot and pulled around to get it. I replied that I had been waiting for her to pull out. She quickly came back to the bitch comment. "You don't call me a bitch," her voice was getting louder. She also inched forward to intimidate me. She was striking distance. So I called her on it. I asked if she was going to hit me.
And you know what comes out of her mouth next??? The pulled the god damned race card. She yelled "You only said that because I'm BLACK!"
Again, I was shocked. And I don't do well on my feet. My lame ass response was "No, I said that because you are too close to me."
OMG, a thousand other responses came to my head afterward....
Like "No, I said it because you're FAT!" was my favorite because after all, with the ridiculous nature of her question, I later thought she should have received an equally ridiculous response because we're both fat and both standing in the fat woman's mecca.
But back to the altercation. She continued on the earlier route of "You don't call me a btich!"
Meanwhile, I'm still walking around the store, trying to get away from her AND trying to look as if I'm still browsing the clothes and that she's not intimidating the hell out of me. I turn around each time she says this and tell her that first of all, I didn't call her a bitch... what I said was she did a bitch thing and 2nd of all, I really can call her whatever the hell I want because she did a rude thing that was inexcusable.
She FINALLY walked off, still yelling that I can't call her a bitch and as she left the store, she said something to the sales girl who was straightening clothes near the front door. She left the store and I went to the front window to see if she was headed to my car to do some damage to it in some way. She had walked the other way though.
The sales girl asked if we were old rivals or something. I replied that no, she had swiped my parking space, I had called her a bitch for it and she had stalked me into the store to verbally assault me.
By the time I got back into my clothes and left the store, she was gone from her spot and my car was scratch-free and my tires appeared to not have been touched.
It was a weird situation, but what pissed me off most of all was the race card. I was mad at her for what she did to me not because of the color of her skin. I would have called it a bitch move had she been any color of the rainbow. I told John later and he said that as white people, we are conditioned to not say anything about race. That she thought it was all about race may be her conditioning to believe that it is all about the color of her skin. Because of this and what happened to me at my company under my previous manager, I truly believe that the Civil War is not just being held on to by white supremacists like my brother though they're the ones who mainly get blamed for carrying on bigotry. Some black people cannot let it go either, forever thinking it's the white man (or in this case, woman) always trying to keep them down. And GOD, I hate that just as much as I despise my brother's bigotry.
Yesterday was my birthday and I took the day off from work. It was a ME day. And so somewhere around late morning, I toodled over to Kingstowne to pick up my skort. I pulled into the parking lot and spied a car coming out of a space. I lined up my car in the row and waited for her to maneuver her land barge out of the space. As soon as she cleared the space, this little black Infinity came around the opposite corner and pulled into the space. Ooooooo this burned my butt. I pulled around to the other side and parked a few spaces further down. I had to walk past her car to get to the store and when I did, I noticed she was still sitting in the car with the engine on and texting. As I passed by her window, I said, "Well that was a bitch thing to do!" and kept walking.
So I go inside and wait at the counter. I give my name and it takes a while for the sales girl to get my package. Once I sign for it, I asked if I could try it on in the dressing room. She said sure and helped me find a dressing room. Now I'm doing all this at a leisurely pace. I get the skort on, it looks decent and I wonder if they have any cute tops to go with it so I head back out to the sales floor with the skort on.
I slowly make my way to the front corner of the store when this large woman blocks my path and says, "Did you call me a bitch?" I'm taken aback, having mostly forgotten about it since it had been at least 10 minutes prior and being a little shocked at having someone acost me. I figured out pretty quickly who she was and I said, "Why yes, I did." You stole my parking place that I had been waiting for." She said she had seen the woman pull out of the spot and pulled around to get it. I replied that I had been waiting for her to pull out. She quickly came back to the bitch comment. "You don't call me a bitch," her voice was getting louder. She also inched forward to intimidate me. She was striking distance. So I called her on it. I asked if she was going to hit me.
And you know what comes out of her mouth next??? The pulled the god damned race card. She yelled "You only said that because I'm BLACK!"
Again, I was shocked. And I don't do well on my feet. My lame ass response was "No, I said that because you are too close to me."
OMG, a thousand other responses came to my head afterward....
Like "No, I said it because you're FAT!" was my favorite because after all, with the ridiculous nature of her question, I later thought she should have received an equally ridiculous response because we're both fat and both standing in the fat woman's mecca.
But back to the altercation. She continued on the earlier route of "You don't call me a btich!"
Meanwhile, I'm still walking around the store, trying to get away from her AND trying to look as if I'm still browsing the clothes and that she's not intimidating the hell out of me. I turn around each time she says this and tell her that first of all, I didn't call her a bitch... what I said was she did a bitch thing and 2nd of all, I really can call her whatever the hell I want because she did a rude thing that was inexcusable.
She FINALLY walked off, still yelling that I can't call her a bitch and as she left the store, she said something to the sales girl who was straightening clothes near the front door. She left the store and I went to the front window to see if she was headed to my car to do some damage to it in some way. She had walked the other way though.
The sales girl asked if we were old rivals or something. I replied that no, she had swiped my parking space, I had called her a bitch for it and she had stalked me into the store to verbally assault me.
By the time I got back into my clothes and left the store, she was gone from her spot and my car was scratch-free and my tires appeared to not have been touched.
It was a weird situation, but what pissed me off most of all was the race card. I was mad at her for what she did to me not because of the color of her skin. I would have called it a bitch move had she been any color of the rainbow. I told John later and he said that as white people, we are conditioned to not say anything about race. That she thought it was all about race may be her conditioning to believe that it is all about the color of her skin. Because of this and what happened to me at my company under my previous manager, I truly believe that the Civil War is not just being held on to by white supremacists like my brother though they're the ones who mainly get blamed for carrying on bigotry. Some black people cannot let it go either, forever thinking it's the white man (or in this case, woman) always trying to keep them down. And GOD, I hate that just as much as I despise my brother's bigotry.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 03:46 pm (UTC)I had someone comment to me the other day that he knew a black guy who said it wasn't possible for black people to be racist, just white people. Nope, won't fly: where there is a diversity, there is the chance for bigotry or acceptance, only two chances there. Doesn't matter what color the pot or kettle is; anytime someone pulls the color card, there's bigotry involved.
I'm sure she leads a conflict-filled life.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 06:42 pm (UTC)She was probably so angry because you weren't the first person to call her a (well deserved) bitch this week.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 07:25 pm (UTC)