Race in America: The Burden of Being Responsible for the Black Community's Behavior
Imagine that you are in a semi dark conference room with a podium and a speaker. The projector was running and the presenter was presenting when this woman wearing red mask peeked around the corner. She reminded me of Shirley Chisolm. No insult to the late great Shirley Chisolm. We all thought that she would realized she was in the wrong room. We thought she had left but the joke was on us. A few minutes later she came in the room with her purse and lunch bag. She put her stuff on the last empty table and proceeded to the microwave. We were all flabbergasted! Everyone in the class was shocked and one person's mask was so tight I could actually see the print of his mouth being opened! Talk about a jaw drop! So some of us in management decided to speak to her. One of the supervisors who is a person of color asked the lady if she was with our company because there are other employers in the building.
She said that she worked in our call center and they had been using the conference room as a guest break room The supervisor advised her that we were in the middle of a meeting. The woman said I am sorry and then proceeded to heat her food in the microwave. We were all astonished. The presenter with a look of disbelief carried on with the meeting with the microwave running. Me and one of the other members of management took this personally because everyone was looking at the two black women to handle the situation even though there was a Hispanic man and a white woman who were also members of management.
But I digress. After the woman got her meal out of the microwave we thought she was leaving but she sat at the table where her stuff was and started to eat her lunch. She disrupted the class again because she could not get her bag of potato chips opened! It took a few seconds to get the bag open then she started to crunch on them disturbing the class. We had 15 minutes to left so we got through the class. Management discussed the what had happened and went to the call center to report her to her supervisor. As we were entering the call center we noticed they had a big break room. We told the supervisor that we did not know if she was actually one of his employees so could he come with us to check. He checked and she belonged to him. He came out of the conference room and gave us the thumbs up. We were on the elevator when I realized that she never came out of the conference room.
I was embarrassed because of this black woman's uncouth behavior. And I am a black woman. Why has society placed such a burden on people of color for the behavior of other people of color? I went through a few emotional stages shock, anger, embarrassment and then laughter. Uncontrollable laughter! A colleague said the woman was so clueless that the incident reminded her of Mrs. Wiggins from the Carol Burnett Show. And she was right, we actually met a real life Mrs. Wiggins. Any who after this situation, I have decided to no longer let society place guilt on me for some else's behavior. It is not fair and I will no longer take part in America's social conditioning construct..
She said that she worked in our call center and they had been using the conference room as a guest break room The supervisor advised her that we were in the middle of a meeting. The woman said I am sorry and then proceeded to heat her food in the microwave. We were all astonished. The presenter with a look of disbelief carried on with the meeting with the microwave running. Me and one of the other members of management took this personally because everyone was looking at the two black women to handle the situation even though there was a Hispanic man and a white woman who were also members of management.
But I digress. After the woman got her meal out of the microwave we thought she was leaving but she sat at the table where her stuff was and started to eat her lunch. She disrupted the class again because she could not get her bag of potato chips opened! It took a few seconds to get the bag open then she started to crunch on them disturbing the class. We had 15 minutes to left so we got through the class. Management discussed the what had happened and went to the call center to report her to her supervisor. As we were entering the call center we noticed they had a big break room. We told the supervisor that we did not know if she was actually one of his employees so could he come with us to check. He checked and she belonged to him. He came out of the conference room and gave us the thumbs up. We were on the elevator when I realized that she never came out of the conference room.
I was embarrassed because of this black woman's uncouth behavior. And I am a black woman. Why has society placed such a burden on people of color for the behavior of other people of color? I went through a few emotional stages shock, anger, embarrassment and then laughter. Uncontrollable laughter! A colleague said the woman was so clueless that the incident reminded her of Mrs. Wiggins from the Carol Burnett Show. And she was right, we actually met a real life Mrs. Wiggins. Any who after this situation, I have decided to no longer let society place guilt on me for some else's behavior. It is not fair and I will no longer take part in America's social conditioning construct..