White Girl gets accosted at the grocery store

What is wrong with people.  Then again what is wrong with me?  Why do I insist on going to the store?  I try not to go but sometimes you just have to go.  I needed Easter Candy.  STAT.  I was dreading buying it for a plethora of reasons.  The first reason was because I would eat it.  Since my brain surgery (I know, I keep promising to talk about it but I just don't feel like it yet), I really hate candy.  I have not had any cravings for it but Easter candy I was not all to sure about and I was stalling.  Second reason was the dreadful store.  

So, there I was Saturday before Easter in Stater Brothers.  I have not really recovered as well as I should have and on my days off I just don't pop out of bed like I used to.  I was the kind of person most of you hate.  I used to jump out of bed all smiles and happy with tons of energy ready for the day with a happy heart and a smile.  Not so much any more, I get out of bed but the energy just has left the building.  So, getting the any store when it opens is not an option any more.  

Basically, I was at Stater Brothers at around 1:00 PM.  The place was packed.  Most folks were in an Easter Frenzy.  I was there for Candy and Pastry Dough.  I was talking to my BFF on the phone and had spent about 15 minutes decimating the Easter candy section.  Then I went to where I thought the pastry dough would be.  

My BFF and I were talking about nonsense as always.  Most of you who shop know about grocery store etiquette.  It is something like this.  When your looking for something you pull your shopping cart all the way to the side of an isle and you stand as close to the side of the isle as possible.  I am not sure about cell phones in the grocery store.  I do tend to chat it up with my BFF in the grocery store because I am the ultimate multi-tasker.   Since I am basically deaf, I hope I don't talk to loud.  I wonder what Emily Post would have said about cell phones in the grocery store?  Hmmm?  I need to look that up.  

So, I was asking said BFF and asking what kind of pastry I should use for this recipe I was going to make.  I could not find the dough.  I was about to spiral out of control thinking I might have to make my own pastry dough.  I fail at pastry dough.  I can do it, it just takes me at least three or four attempts and I was not feeling like making that kind of mess in my kitchen.

When all of the sudden, my cart gets slammed into by another cart.  I look up and there are three young women behind a shopping cart.  I look up in suprise and say excuse me?  There was one girl behind the cart and two girls behind her.  They were looking at me with such hate and venom in their eyes I was instantly afraid.  She rammed her cart into my cart again.  I get a better look at them and notice that they have lots of tattoos on their arms and some rather heavy make-up with sharpie eyebrows and what I would call slut clothes.  I would say just by looking at them that they looked like they belonged to a gang but I could not say for sure because I do not know them.  For all I know they were dressed up for a costume party.   I told my BFF that out loud that these girls had rammed my cart.  Just as I did that the girl driving the cart looked right in my eye and with this look of pure hate, she did it again.  I was terrified and left the area fast.   

I did find the pastry and went to the check out.  I kept thinking that those girls were going to meet me out in the parking lot and beat me up for reasons only known to them.  By now my BFF and said goodbye.  I had my phone out and ready to dial 911 as I loaded my candy and pastry into my car.  I knew I would be easy fodder for those girls.   What could I do reason with them?  Guilt them to death?  Not.  

So, I told my Husband about it later that day.  He told me that he did not want me going to that store alone any more.  He told me to drive the ten miles to "a better neighborhood".  I had told him that I had been to that Stater Brothers at all different times and that I had noticed, if I went early in the morning it was great, but after 1000 AM it became rougher and rougher.  My Husband explained that our little bubble of a neighborhood is surrounded by not so good neighborhoods and that it is best to drive ten miles for better shopping and not shop local.  That if I needed to shop for a few things, wait until he got home and he would go with me.  I was so confused.  He said its not you.  Your a nice person.  But all they see is a white lady with a nice handbag, beautiful clothes and they hate you.  That makes no sense.  He made me promise.  So now I have to take him with me or drive ten miles to shop.  I do 90% of my shopping on-line anyway.  Now the 10% of what I do in an actual store that I had thought was a nightmare just got worse.  More like a hell mare.  Imagine shopping with your Husband.  Shiver.  

Then I told my friends at work what happened.  They agreed with my Husband.  I was more perplexed.  I don't think of my friends as being Mexican, Black or anything other than people I love.  They are my friends.  However, they pointed out to me these facts.  One of my friends was insistent that these girls at the store were Cholas (her word not mine).   I said, I guess so.  I didn't ask them but just by looking at them I would say yes.  She said that she is a Latina and she knows what Cholas (again not my word.  Hers. ) act like and that since I am a white person that they would hate me.  I asked her, if she hated me because I am white?  She said no way, she loved me.  I said then why would they hate me?  She said the same thing my Husband said.  Once again I was so confused.  

I think my heart broke a little bit this week.  I learned am hated simply because I am white.  Because I have nice clothes and nice handbags.  This makes me so sad.  My Husband and I have worked hard for our prosperity.  My Husband is an excellent steward of our finances and we save almost everything we make.  Why is this hated?  Do they know that I am adopted and not completely white?  Do they know that my Husband was an abused child and in foster care most of his life?  No, I doubt it, yet there is this apparent hatred.  Yes, my heart is broken.  

I guess some would say that white folk deserve the hatred and the abuse that is coming their way.  I say no we don't because no one deserves to be treated badly simply because of race or social status.  We as a people need to start treating others as we would like to be treated without prejudice until we know them.  Once someone proves themselves to be a dick then you can treat them like an asshole they have proven themselves to be.  You know on an individual basis.  Not as a group.  Just saying.  I mean maybe those girls were mad at me because I was talking to loud or blocking the butter to long.  A little harsh for butter blocking in my opinion but maybe in her world that was what you do for someone you think was displaying bad manners.  I don't know. 

Anyway, I am pretty sure my world just got a little smaller and I never thought I would have to have an escort to go to the grocery store in my own neighborhood simply because of the color of my own skin and social status.  I think I am going to channel my inner Rosa Parks from now on and just do my best to make this world a better place.  I don't know how but I am going to do it.