Faux Real

I worked last Saturday with Sally (a sadly unimaginative nickname we will give my coworker in order to protect her privacy), and after a long, lazy morning of donuts and ebay-browsing, we closed the doors to the office at noon. A man slid past us right before 12, and after I was done helping him, she escorted him to the door. Sally walked the last customer through one set of doors to the outside entrance, where she was met by another man, a man who waited until the last minute to come in, and was furious that we wouldn’t let him indoors.

Instead of accepting that the office was closed and that we weren’t going to stay open especially just for his sorry, late ass, he puffed up his chest, bent over into Sally’s face, and began to berate her. She handled him well with her customer service chops, but I saw him pull a piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket and demand something from her. She refused. When Sally finally moved to close the locked door once and for all, the man put his foot down, blocking the door, and tried to push past her.

This is when I ran in back to grab a supervisor or the closest thing to it. The super I got was also a man, which seemed to appease the asshole berating Sally. Super explained the situation to the angry customer, who was unhappy but seemed to accept Super’s version of the story over Sally’s, despite the fact that Super was only reiterating the same things Sally had already advised. Eventually the man left, we closed and locked the doors, and Sally and I shared a moment of panic — wide-eyed and breathless, we both were deeply bothered.

I genuinely thought he was going to hurt her.

It turns out he wanted her last name. After her explanations and his escalating anger, he decided that he was going to report her to the administrative team once the office re-opened Monday (because he arrived after we closed and thus we couldn’t/wouldn’t help him, no less), and “Sally” was too generic a name for his taste, or something. In his mind, I’m sure, he thought he would set her straight, the usual kind of shit you force as a customer with a low opinion for those in customer service. But I saw:

1) a larger man
2) trying to appear even bigger to
3) intimidate a woman who
4) has authority over something he wants and can’t get,
5) asks for her name, god only knows what he wants with her first and last name, and
6) uses his stature to prevent her from deescalating the situation, and
7) whose anger over this fact is only alleviated when a person of the dudely persuasion reaffirms her authority.

And I presume if, when the man came in today to report Sally to our supervisors (and he did), I extended myself to tell him that we were scared, that we thought he might strike Sally or worse, he would scoff. I imagine he wouldn’t see any violent threats anywhere in his actions, or perhaps he would deny any violent thoughts he might have had. In a matter of a few minutes, Sally’s composure, her professional status, her authority and good cheer, her person, had been erased by some angry, ignorant dude who didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

During a quiet period today, I asked Sally if she was scared on Saturday. No, she said, I’m usually a wuss about these things, but I stood my ground. It wasn’t until afterward that it really bothered me. But it bothered her. We deal with some funky shit at work, but rarely are we personally insulted or feel physically threatened. Dealing with these situations on a relatively common basis, we’re able to remove ourselves. After all, we are not our jobs.

About ten minutes later, I clicked on this link and began to read the comments on the post. The synapses started firing until there were full-on fireworks, especially when BFP writes:

I think that any anti-racism, ally building work needs to recognize that when women of color speak, the same rules are not set in place as when other people speak.

there is perpetually a threat of violence in the air–whether it is the violence of erasure, or the actual physical violence of confrontation–it’s *always* there when women of color speak… many bloggers who are women of color have huge problems with the yes means yes call out, and DON’T SAY ANYTHING because they know what will happen if they do. That is a violence… [emphasis mine]

Primarily because I didn’t get it — and in some ways I still don’t — when these inter-feminist disagreements begin, mostly because I am rooted in the white, heteronormative, middle-class values I was raised in. I hear the discussion, and in theory I can understand, and sometimes contribute, but when the theory that is not my lived-in life doesn’t apply I flounder. Book-learnin’ only goes so far. Something about the incident this Saturday, along with BFP’s observation, crystallized a year of blog reading.

I’m still chewing on it. At several points in recent history, I’ve been the puffed up dude with my foot in the door. That bothers me.

ALSO: Read this while you’re at it.