Friday, May 23, 2008

Did I Just Get Racismed?

Today I was at Mr. Donuts with my friend. We were discussing something mundane over a cup of coffee and a cruller (well, 4 crullers, but they're Japan-sized).

This being Saturday morning, the shop was a madhouse. The line of customers nearly snaked out the door, there was an angry baby screaming bloody murder somewhere near the breakfast pastries, and you could hear the constant clink of money, clatter of dishware, and general conversation. The company seems to switch out the bored college students we see at 10PM for the varsity staff members in the morning. The 3 women working were spitting out machine-gun Japanese, packing donuts, brewing coffee, taking money, and generally working like an 8-armed meth addict and making it look natural.

I think you get the picture. It's busy and loud. So one of the staff members comes to our table to refill our coffe. She fills our cups, then pauses, and says that the table next to us complained that we were talking too loud, and could we please be more quiet.

Keep in mind, the place is so frenetic and loud that I can't even hear myself think, and yet WE'RE the loud ones? It's not the screaming little kid, not the general pandemonium, but us talking in our normal conversational voices?

We of course continued talking at the same volume and no one said anything else. I got to thinking though...why us?

The one white guy in the store and we're the ones being loud? Makes you think, doesn't it?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a favor to you I will be subtly racist to the next Asian guy I see at Starbucks. That way things will even out.

Nate said...

Thanks for your support. Is anyone else going to join Gavin in doing the right thing?

Anonymous said...

You are being paranoid. And you are probably correct.