Ah, the joys of my wife and I traveling back to see her family. She gets to eat mutton, I get to eat frybread, it's all good.
It's also experiences like shopping at the Shiprock Trading Company that make us appreciate our home in the Bay. Why? Read on.
My wife is a proud Navajo woman. She's also an attorney, and probably earns more in a year than the gross receipts this shop takes in in six months. Unfortunately, she doesn't have her bank balance tattooed on her face.
If she did, perhaps she wouldn't have been met with the all too typical racism of a border town. Did she have to ask three times to be helped? Sure did. Was she treated with courtesy and respect? Of course not! It's Farmington! And she isn't white. So the white woman behind the counter was passive aggressive, hostile, and uncommunicative. Sweet.
Does this bother us? Sort of, I suppose. It is a walk of several dozen feet to the next store. read more