“Just be nice”: A Fine White Lady’s Approach to Racism

Early Friday morning. I take a 20-minute walk to one of my favorite coffee shops in Boston to sip on my coffee while doing a zoom call with my therapist. 

I arrive and the coffee shop was already at its usual peak with groups of women congregated around tables drinking coffee, munching on french pastries, and engaging in jovial conversations. I pick a table right between two groups of women who seem to be catching up after school drop-off. “I just feel like I have so much to do. I feel like I am needed in so many places at once,” says one of the ladies. It’s the last phrase I catch before putting my AirPods on to get ready for my therapy. “I hear you sister. I am right there with you!” I thought to myself with a sense of comfort feeling understood by these strange women. 

Therapy begins, and I tune out of the world. I am having my conversation straight into a phone screen prepped up by my coffee mug, and everyone else is having theirs with their real-life companions. 

Halfway through the therapy, I notice the table next to me rotates. Two ladies leave, and another one sits down. No big deal. Back to my conversation. 

“Excuse me”, says a loud voice to my left side. “Excuse me!” 

I turn around and see a woman talking directly at me. “Can you please keep it down? I am trying to read and you are too loud.” At that point, my mind is thinking, “Are you really talking to me?”, but I am too distracted looking at the way she is slowly enunciating every word. 

“Excuse me?,” I say as I look around pointing with my hands at the groups of people around us. “I am just as loud as everyone around me,” I say and hope this is the end of our conversation. 

Of course, it’s not. 

“You are too loud. I can hear your voice so loud,” she says, this time with a hand motion interpreting an explosion in her ear. Without thinking twice, and just rolling right out of my tongue I say, “Is it because I’m speaking Spanish, or because I am speaking?” 

Her eyes are now wide open behind her two sets of reading glasses. The group to my left goes quiet. In my mind, I can hear a pin drop. Time stops for me. My heart is pumping.

She quickly explains that it is not the case and that she is just trying to read and blah, blah, blah. 

I look at the group to the left. All three women are now looking. “Am I being too loud?” I ask kindly. “If I am, please tell me, and I’ll understand.” 

Two of them shake their head and tell me they couldn’t hear me at all. However, the third one thinks differently. The one sitting the farthest away from me decides it is her opportunity to defend someone being treated unfairly. 

However, it’s not me. 

“I don’t hear you, but I see what she means. She is trying to read,” says the white lady. “Just be nice to her.” 

This is the same white lady with who I recently felt connected by her frustration to have too much on her plate. However, I realized at that very moment that we, in fact, did not have similar battles. 

“Be nice?” I thought to myself but didn’t say it aloud. I was perplexed. How is it that I need to be “nice” to a lady who just discriminated against me, stereotyped me, and was racist towards me? 

Be nice? I was being as nice as I could have possibly been given the circumstances. I was standing up for myself and putting the racist lady on the spot for her gross behavior, and the nice white lady next to me decided that I should just let it be? 

She didn’t understand my battle. It was clear that she had never been in my position. She had never been called out for speaking another language, having a name phonetically different, or having a different skin color. She had never been discriminated against based on her place of birth or ethnicity. 

It’s okay to not understand my battle as a minority, but it is not okay to underestimate it and diminish it.

Yes, it is uncomfortable to see. Trust me, it is just as uncomfortable for me. Standing up to a racist is scary. It takes a lot of courage. So, if you witness the situation, be proud of the person standing up for herself, her family, her ancestors, her community. Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Dear nice white lady, don’t diminish my battles because they make you uncomfortable. You might not understand me, but stand by me.