I find it funny my first review is one of the recommended ones.
A former employee told me the different codes in conversation one day so hearing them used on me is nothing new. As a person of color, I am long numb to the site of a security guard (laughably) undercover trailing me through the store. I saw him creeping literally around corners, beady eyes shining at the sight of some impoverished person looking at raincoats one stormy day. When he trailed me I would go to the hygiene aisle & wait for him to nonchalantly fiddle the jumbo tampons. Staring at him until he went away. Like most people I don't steal, so usually he doesn't follow me . Or maybe he got good & I just don't notice. After a few years most clerks are nice. As a long time local business owner, I sourced a lot of my supplies here.
I have come to see Fred Meyers as the one safe place I could go to and not be harassed. It seems every store I go to in the post Trump era some bigot accosts me. The man who grabbed my food at Winco & was videotaping me demanding I thank him for my food and foodstamps. I did neither and paid in cash , the woman at the new Mercantile on Main who ran from the back to stand literal inches from me & ask what I wanted over & over again when I asked if she wanted to check my bag she started yelling at me and I fled from the store in tears. The manager at Albertsons on main who again stood inches behind me rudely asking if "I needed help" I promise you when they say it to me over and over every few minutes they are not trying to assist me. He was mad that I had put the few items in my arms down and left them. I had stood trying to get a fork for my food for about 5 minutes being ignored outright by multiple deli people. They chose to serve other people, other caucasian people who came after me by the handful before I gave up & walked away. It was that stuff that I had abandoned. There is more to that story and I will save it for their page. But you get the gist.
But, If every store you went to called security before you even had a chance to locate the milk you would understand the anxiety & sorrow i feel daily. You would know to casually show the inside of your bag, so they could see that you not stolen anything. And you make sure to wear expensive clothes . Make sure to use your best manners and cheerfully allow people to cut in front of you or push past you aggressively. You have to ignore the PTSD you have acquired since you were assaulted by racists. The one that makes you shake and cry after grown men speak to you with such disdain such impersonal cruelty that you wonder if the world is better off without you. You have to push back the screams of terror when the large woman at Walmart uses her body to push you into giving a receipt that you don't have because you only purchased 3 things and threw it away in the bathroom after you checked out. Or when she reached into your purse a week later when you were flustered and looking for it while a line piled up behind you and your cheeks were red and hot. And even though you had just spent 1200 dollars you were still treated like trash. You have to ignore the urge to blow up to rage and beat your fist on the smug faces of the ones who wear their privilege like a second skin. And it is really, they were born into it. And I will never rest like the ones who are never pursued. It is all of that and more that I think of as i write and the 2 women just now, who were walking behind me in Fred Meyer. I noticed them both in the meat aisle, An older mother & daughter duo both wearing clear face masks and ugly neutral clothes. I thought of my own mother & tried to smile at them to no response. I was looking at the baking stuff for my birthday tomorrow when I noticed them coming up the aisle, As my cart was somewhat towards the middle I gallantly pulled it over to make way for them. I apologized for my inconsiderateness to stone silence. I was hot & removed my Fendi wrap. The tag was still on the shirt underneath from Target where I had purchased not stolen it the day before. I thought nothing of them as I removed the tag.But they thought of me. Not to tell me gently that the tag had been hanging as many have done before. And I myself had alerted many a woman that her tag was sticking out before they gently removed it or tucked it back. Ladies you know what I mean.
Shannon has a grumpy face.She has checked me out in complete silence more than a few time. It took many years for her ever to say more than a perfunctory hello to me. She stared at me until i nicely asked her is there something more? Your hat. What? Your hat. A customer came and said you had a price tag on it. I showed her the label of my hat and said that is because they are bigots. Those B'S ran their face holes & told Shannon I was stealing. Did she smile & apologize for accusing me & show herself not to be a racist? No she just stared in silence as i paid my 300 dollars & walked away. Your all the same arent you? read more