White male here, and I can definitely say this is true for me. Just the thought of having someone think I did something for racist reasons is enough to make me sick to my stomach. The few times it’s actually happened, the sensation is even worse, like being punched.
Pet peeve of mine. In my experience in retail, as in the real world, there’s more than one kind of apology.
There’s the kind where you were in the wrong, and by apologizing you admit your guilt and express a desire to mend the situation and retain the client. If Anastasaeon did reject the clothes on the basis of the consigner’s skin color, he would be giving this kind of apology.
There’s also a conditional kind, which is very useful in customer service, which goes along the lines of “if something I said was misunderstood, then I apologize for the misunderstanding, so let’s clear it up.” The only admission of guilt here is for poor communication, but you still express a desire to mend the situation and retain the client. Even if the customer was deliberately and maliciously playing the race card, most reasonable people will accept miscommunication as a more legitimate cause than racism. And if the client refuses to accept this, it still looks good in front of the others.
An important point to be stressed here: So far, the only person involved is the mother. The daughter has not accused you of racism, and for all we know, she might not have been offended at all. Maybe she was upset for a completely different reason and her mother jumped to conclusions. Or maybe she wasn’t even actually upset at all, and her mother just seized an opportunity to be a squeaky wheel and get some grease. My recommendation would be, if you happen to see the daughter without her mother present, ask her about it, and if she was actually offended, apologize in person for giving that impression, and possibly ask her what gave her that impression so you can avoid offending others. But don’t bring up the subject with the mother at all, since she’s already decided she’s going to be your enemy. Don’t even answer the mother if she brings it up again, unless it’s in court with a lawyer present for each of you.
I agree with Hippy Hollow.
I took my Grandmother to a wonderful doctor for many years. To shorten the story, he was just great with her, called the family to reassure us, made visits to her home to check on her. You couldn’t ask for a kinder, better doctor. (He was from India).
My Mother went for an office visit and in taking her blood pressure noticed her blood pressure was high and gave her a box of sample blood pressure medication.
After the visit my Mom & Dad went grocery shopping and my Mother became disoriented and had a TIA and was rushed to the hospital. Apparently it wasn’t the right medication and he blood pressure dropped too quickly.
It was pretty serious and my father was extremely upset. He had to go into the doctors office to drop off an insurance form and when the doctor said hello, my father being angry didn’t answer him at all.
When I took my grandmother back to the doctor for her visit, the doctor went on an absolute tangent about the way my father treated him. He went on and on about how he cared for my grandmother blah blah, and my father was rude to him because he was Indian.
I was sort of dumbfounded. I didn’t want to get into an argument with him and point out the obvious, but he absolutely believed that the reason my Dad ignored him was because he was from India. He truly believed that.
Sometimes why we believe something doesn’t come from a rational place.
As a former consignment drone myself, you did exactly what you should have done. It sounds like this girl (or possibly her mother, or possibly both of them) are just in that group of people that will do and say ANYTHING to get you to take their clothing. If you had been black or they had been white or you’d all been purple with pink spots, they’d have found a reason to complain about your policies.
My only advice is that when you’re folding clothes to return them, fold them with the stains clearly visible, so you can point them out easily. I’ve had many, many women start shrieking “See! There’s no stain!” if it takes me more than three seconds to locate the offending spot.
You didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m thrilled that your manager backed you up. It sounds like he/she is one of the good ones.
Yep, that’s right. I’d agree with that. (White woman here.)
This is a misunderstanding not much unlike other misunderstandings, except that perceived racism is involved and the OP doesn’t know how to go about setting things straight. I see no indication that malice is associated with any of the involved parties, so there is no rational reason to be angry at anyone. “Playing the race card” (this is such a hackneyed phrase, I want to shoot myself in the face every time someone says it) suggests that someone is attributing race to something when they know that it is likely to be some another cause. There’s no evidence to say that the girl is doing that.
Do you have the family’s number on file? Perhaps you can call the girl up (or her mother) and explain that you heard that she was upset about the clothes rejection and thought it because you had a problem with black people. Explain to her that wasn’t the case at all and that is the last thing that would ever cross your mind to do. A simple “I’m sorry that what I did/said hurt your feelings. I was just following our store policy and did not mean to offend” would patch things up, I believe.
I can’t actually think of much of anything that could actually be worse than using the employer’s client information for personal purposes. Depending on the employer, you could find yourself looking for a new job very quickly.
If that’s the case, then forget about it. I didn’t know this was a no-no, but I guess I can see why it would be.
Word. Actually, I’d prefer to point the gun away from myself, but yeah…
It’s up there with “compassionate conservatism” for me. Please, let it die!
Wowwww, this is strange.
If everything happened as you say it did (and I don’t have reason to believe that it didn’t) then it doesn’t seem to me that you did anything wrong. And it certainly doesn’t seem to me that you rejected that particular pile of clothes due to racist intent on your part. As you said, you did, after all, accept some of her clothes.
I haven’t read too far in the thread, but I did see that “playing the race card” was mentioned. (God, how I hate that phrase!) I don’t think it’s quite that simple. IANA psychologist/psychiatrist, but it seems to me that there could be some kind of chemical/mental imbalance going on. Not saying that this is the case; only that I wouldn’t discount it as a possibility. Again, like you said, you did accept some of her clothes.
And the thing with the mother…sweet baby Jesus. I understand a parent’s instinct to protect his/her child, and I understand that this white woman being the mother of a black child likely gives her some kind insight into under-the-surface white racism that disimilarly situated whites don’t seem to have (or many, for that matter, aren’t particularly interested in acquiring), but…dang, even racially enlightened white folks can get it wrong sometimes. I’ve certainly seen it happen.
Anyway, my first instinct is to tell you not to apologize since, on the merits alone, there’s no evidence that you acted in a racially discriminatory manner. On the other hand, though, I can sometimes be a softy, and it does seem as if this girl has some issue going on that miiiiiight be somewhat ameliorated by some gesture on your part. So, maybe you can call her up and tell her that you’re not a racist (okay, not a capital “R” racist, anyway, as I’ve mentioned in another thread), reiterate just why you rejected the stuff that you rejected, and tell her you’re sorry that she (obviously) misinterpreted something that you may have done (she may not, after all, be aware of the customer/consigner/phone priority that you mentioned, and she may have been put off by what she imagined to be you interrupting your transaction with her to tend to someone else). That’s it. No more, no less, then let the cards fall where they may.
If you do this on the phone, you might want to have another party listen in (someone objective would be nice) so that you can’t later be accused (not that that would necessarily happen) of doing something else improper. Better yet, perhaps you can invite both her and her mother in for a meeting with you and a (preferably objective) third (well, fourth) party and have the conversation then.
Good luck!
It’s not unreasonable to think that that’s a possibility in this case. Several people who have worked in consignment shops have already said that people would try anything to get all their clothes accepted, and if everything happened as Anastasaeon said it did, there was very little reason for the woman to think genuine racism was involved. Thus, the major possibilities I see are that a) either the woman was extremely sensitive to any perceived slights and thought that if Anastasaeon took any less than all her clothes it was racism, b) there’s some other missing element that Anastasaeon didn’t notice or wasn’t aware of that upset the woman (such as the possibility I suggested that Anastasaeon accidentally only took the white mother’s clothes), or c) the woman thought that if she played the race card it would make the store accept all her clothes. That’s not unreasonable.
Is it the phrase you object to, or the concept behind the phrase? If the former, I can see what you mean (though it’s no more hackneyed than any other phrase), if the latter, I disagree. It might be too off topic for this thread, but do you disagree that some people “play the race card”?
[off-topic completely]
I hope that’s what you say in real life - I’m delighted by that phrase!
[/off-topic completely]
Well, it’s both. The reality is (in my opinion, anyway) that racism plays a role in many of our interactions. That’s not to say that it’s the only factor, or even the most significant factor at times. “Playing the race card” is a cute way to dismiss legitimate concerns about the role of racism in societal interaction. It’s the kind of thing that people like Bill O’Reilly bark down the phone at callers instead of taking the time to tease apart the intricacies of a situation.
For instance, take the OP. I’m giving Anastasaeon the benefit of the doubt here. It doesn’t sound like she handled this situation in a way less than professionally and courteously. But perhaps the young woman (whom we still don’t know was affected by the situation to the degree that Mom was) has encountered racism in that particular store from other staff members. Or racists acts perpetrated in the city or shopping area where she works. Is it completely illogical to assume that this might be the cause of a negative interaction (given, of course, the possibility that this assumption may prove to be less significant than previously thought, when presented with the evidence)?
And yes, I know that none of the scenarios presented above would directly link to anything Anastasaeon did. But to extend the analogy a bit, if women were being attacked by men in a certain area at night, I wouldn’t be surprised if women assumed that every man was a potential attacker after dark. I wouldn’t accuse them of playing the gender card because they were being extra cautious around me or other men they didn’t know, even though I’ve never attacked a woman and I don’t think that it’s possible I ever would.
I would wager that many times people overstate the role of racism in these cases. But honestly, sometimes there is a legitimate reason to presume that race plays a role. Now, if the situation occurred as Anastasaeon described it, and she has a positive interaction with the daughter, but the daughter still feels that she was discriminated against, I’d disagree with her (the daughter). There just isn’t a reliable racism detector that gives us definitive proof (or refutation) of racism in human interactions.
All too often people say “play the race card” as a means of striking down any and every notion that a given incident is the result of racism. People who are eager to use the phrase, in my experience, are predisposed to labeling anyone who thinks racism might be to blame for a particular conflict as victims or race-baiters. It’s like they have to villify the accuser in order to relieve the accused of their guilt, and they do this by portraying them as manipulative gamers using their race as a weapon. It does not help anything when people presume that to be the case.
There’s a certain irony when people throw out the “play the race card” card, and it centers around giving people the benefit of the doubt. I think we all agree that we should give folks the benefit of the doubt before ascribing racism to their motives, right? Lovers of the “play the race card” phrase rarely seem willing to extend this benefit of the doubt to the accusers. They assume that its malice that is driving people to think racism when it is really is something else. Like a simple misunderstanding. Or a bad day. Or people being too sensitive and reading too much into body language. Unintentional things that have nothing to do with trying to manipulate or take advantage of someone. So the end result is that while they preach the importance of giving the benefit of the doubt to people who are accused of racism, they don’t practice the same advice when it comes to other side of the equation.
And yeah, the phrase has been overused. I blame the OJ trial for foisting this disgrace on the American people.
I’ve had similar things happen to me while working retail. It sucks. It’s incredible how bad you can be made to feel after having done nothing wrong. There are some people out there who will see persecution everywhere, even if they have to imagine it into existence.
I’ll stop saying “playing the race card” when people stop playing the race card. Alternatively, I’ll stop saying it when the accusatory usage of the word “racist” goes out of fashion.
I agree, though I suspect we’d disagree on the degree to which racism is still prevalent in society. I don’t believe it is still so prevalent that the idea that someone could cynically use claims of racism (ie “playing the race card”) should be dismissed.
Yes, some people use the term to unfairly dismiss all claims of racism, which is infuriating. But I don’t see why that should mean that people playing the race card never – or even almost never – happens. Some claims of racism are legitimate and deserving of further scrutiny, but some are not. Some claims of racism are even cynical or mean or vindictive. We’ve already had several white people on this thread (myself included) state that being accused of racism is one of the worst things you can be accused of. Given that fairly widespread feeling among white people, how could you not expect some minorities (who are as prone to cynicism, meanness and vindictiveness as the rest of us) to try to exploit it?
No, that’s not an illogical possibility; I’d put that in category “b” of what I saw as the major possible explanations in my earlier thread. If the woman had regularly experienced racism at a similar degree to the accusations that were made at Anastaseon’s store, I can certainly see why she might be ultra-sensitive to any perceived slights. But this is not the only possibility, nor is it necessarily the most likely possibility.
For the analogy to work, I think you’d have to believe that black people in Anastaseon’s area are regularly discriminated against at or near the level at which these accusations are being made – essentially, regularly being denied service in stores because of their race. Maybe this is the case (I’ve never been to Puget Sound) but I doubt it.
In any event, given your analogy, if I were walking through a park where women were known to be attacked, I wouldn’t blame a woman for being extra cautious either. (Just as I wouldn’t blame the woman in the OP for being extra cautious if she’d experienced a lot of racism in that store before.) But if I politely asked the woman in the park what time it was and in response she pepper-sprayed me and turned me into the police as a rapist and (if we’re to get really cynical here) tried to collect a reward for it, well, then I’d have a problem. (It’s a bad comparison, but the whole thing is inexact.)
I think that has more to do with Americans preferring to think of people as innocent until proven guilty instead of guilty until proven innocent, rather than any racist double standard. If you’re going to accuse someone of something, you’d better be prepared to substantiate your claims. Especially something as serious as racism – as mentioned before, it’s among the worst things you can be accused of in modern American society.
Admittedly, this becomes increasingly difficult as much of the racism we hear about nowadays is of the unproveable kind – matters of supposed (and perhaps actual) negative attitudes, hidden hostilities, etc.
Yes. Way, way, way too much. Understand that the race card is being played on you and act accordingly.
I’ve been in that situation once and once only. I denied a student permission to test because he wasn’t ready (I run a Taekwondo school). The parents came in the next day and the mother started in on me about not letting him test. I pointed out that he needed more time to learn the material and was told that I was holding him back simply because I was white and I wanted the white kids to outrank him.
I was pissed beyond belief. As much as the son needed the training in life skills to overcome his bigoted parents, I had no choice but to terminate their contract on the spot and tell them to leave the school. I told the mother that there was no place in my school for bigotry like that and I would not tolerate it from her or anyone else.
And neither should you.