Whiteness from the other side: Wal-Mart

I experience yet again another random act of kindness from white people, where I would have never thought possible. Remember, white people and white folks are two different organisms. As opposed to elaborating on my definitions, I will share the detail of two different but still related experiences.

My day at Wal-Mart.
Me and Red Chief were doing some Friday evening shopping at the Wal-Mart. We had to get some basics and some restocking items for the Penthouse. Well as I have said before, money and I these days are not on the best of speaking terms. I talk, rarely does it listen. But I am happy to say that we are in negotiations so that our communications will be much better in the near future. Being a single parent will force you to have those conversations with Mr. Franklin, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Washington, etc. As we get to the check out counter, I think I have enough money to cover my purchases. Damn, $5.00 over. OK, I say to myself, embarrassed, yes but its not the end of the world. At the check out counter I am forced to perform an immediate needs assessment of what I want vs what we need. So lets go over the list. whole wheat bread, we need, tooth brush and tooth paste, we need, juices, we need, can opener, we need, chicken, we need, mixing bowl we need. Brownies, we need? Olive oil, we need? Cutting knives, we need? Trash bags, we need? Mixing spoons, we need? Now as I am saying this to myself, the elderly woman, who was running the cash register at the Wal-Mart was looking at the bill. And simply put I was not even going to act like I had forgotten any extra money. $30.00 is what I was going to spend, period. She, as humbly as she could, kindly said to me, your knives are four dollars. If you skip that, that should then bring you down to about $30.50. Ok so the cutting knives had to go. But, as I was still going deeper in the pockets, I was still coming up with lint. This indicates yet another item would remain in the custody of Wal-Mart. “Do you need the wings,” she asked. I shook my head yes because that was going to be our dinner. “What about the olive oil? “ This was $5.00 and I knew where I could get it cheaper for three. Hence, their olive oil had to go back. But then we came across another conundrum, the Zertyc. That was a necessity because both Red Chief and I both have bad sinuses at this time of year, so yep, we need it. Ok that put me back at 30.50. Taking the mixing spoons out, got me down to 28.10. I didn’t feel ashamed; in fact I felt this was some good customer service. If forced me to think again about establishing a harmonious relationship with my money as opposed to a chaotic one. I took out another $15.00 and bought gas and then headed off to the food lion to buy the last items needed for snacks and cooking. The Olive oil was 3.04 and the PBJ for the sandwiches were 1.97. Damn, I was still under regarding the money, but again the manager of the day who had been so enamored with Red-Chief, asked was he being a good helper? He was shocked but happily said yes. Looking at the register, again I was thinking to myself, hell, not again. However, the manager kindly said, don’t worry about it, I’ve got you, So even though I was literally a dollar short, I wasn’t a day late for a blessing. She covered the difference with her discount. I was floored. I had never experienced this much kindness from white people in one day since my trip to London. I got the Obama speak “Twofor” two good deeds by white people in one day. I think the denominator here is that these were working class white people who day to day, try their hardest to make ends meet like most of us. In contrast, when Red Chief and I inquired about how do we get involved in the kickball league in Briar Creek, (mind you, this was from one of the players and not an administrator of the league) I felt as though my inquiring about entering the league would be a turn off. I think I could see a prejudicial stereotype in his mind. Again this is pure conjecture and speculation, but I felt his mind and his body language said, “Shit, can’t we have anything to ourselves? If you come in the league and play, then we have to up our game 10%...” In short, I felt as though I was the victim of reverse athletic discrimination. See that’s why I like weight training and lifting. I have a deceptive build. When folks see me coming, I’m easily dismissed. But when I then start deadlifting sets of 315lbs as a warm up (I call this checking in) white folks become intimidated. Black folk on the other hand are like, “that’s right, you represent!” Frankly I find it annoying by both parties because there is this false ideology being generated by both sets of folks. I just like lifting and running. And if I do say so myself, I do like the results in the mirror.

But back to the issue at hand, we all have been kicked in the ass and in the family jewels pretty damn hard by the wasteful spending of governments and oligopolies. When I saw a family of white folk being taken away in cuffs for shoplifting at the Wal-Mart, I was like my God, this crazy ass economy has simply driven folks to edges of ignorant stupid ass conduct. I think I made a small twitter post about; the Beverly Hills actually let me correct that for geographical sake, The Briar Creek Hillbillies got busted for stealing a microwave box full of DVDs. It was an ugly site to see. Five cop cars, two hillbillies per car it was just weird but, that’s also a reflection of the state of the economy in which we reside. Maybe I might write a letter to the president, the governor of my state and the mayor of my city; it’s sad that I have to celebrate buying a .97 can opener. Its sad that we have a society that regulates “panhandling.” For me, race is a component of economics, but more so, the economic system in this country represents more of an caste system where the symbolic reminders are constant.