Non-Assertive Identification of Racism
I’m not going to call out the cafe or the town I was in, but just to say it’s a town in Germany near where I live.
So, today I entered a cafe and took up the same place as I did last week (my wife and daughters were wedding dress shopping and I needed to make myself scarce). Being the only Black man in the cafe, I quietly waited for someone to serve me. The following are my notes on what was happening in real time.
“Let see how long it takes and whether others are served before me.
Just noticed two other tables had just been occupied, let’s see.
So the first couple have just been served.
The second directly after.
And the waiter walked directly past me.
Wow, so let’s see how long they will let me sit here without ordering and paying for anything.
Been here now about 15 minutes and a third table has been served before me.
Looks like a 4th table even before anyone has taken my order.
Not good!”
At this point, 25 minutes after I took my seat, my wife contacted me to say they had finished early.
So what did I do? I’m not one for complaining, I wanted to just walk out and put it behind me. But something compelled me to seek out the owner.
I went to the serving counter and asked to see the cafe owner. When I managed to get his attention, I explained in my best broken German the situation I had experienced. I didn’t make my complaint centred around racism, even though it clearly was. He called the waiter over, who was serving my part of the cafe, and asked him why he did not serve Table 19 (my table). The waiter made some sort of half assed excuse which I did not fully understand, but the owner clearly was not impressed with it.
The owner apologised again and offered me a drink, I replied no thank you and as I turned to leave, the waiter made a lame attempt at an apology.
Let’s just say I won’t be returning there.
When you are Black and have an experience like this, you begin to question your previous experiences. In this example I began to realise on my first visit, that I had to get someone’s attention to be served, when others entering the cafe on both occasions were served soon after they sat down. There were other examples that make me now question the way I was treated on my first visit.
When you are Black you instinctively know if someone is being genuine or not and when in a situation such as this, you have experienced racism. This is all in the unspoken language of looks and body language, that some white people try to gaslight us on. We know it’s real, so believe us when we tell you we have experienced racism.
I’m still angry at the way I had been treated, it’s unacceptable but I just have to let it go.
Thanks for reading about my experience.