My job was almost perfect. I had avoided the cliche 17 year old job trap - McDonald’s, one of the fifty million grocery stores, Dunkin Donuts, etc - and headed straight to the glamourous and invigorating world of retail. As a part-time sales associate of a local clothing store, my job was almost perfect.
And then there was her.
She didn’t yell at me when I used my phone, she let me leave early when the work day was slow, and she even brought me homemade lunch sometimes - she was an excellent cook.
But that’s not why I quit.
It all started at my interview. I had a phone interview prior, and to my delight, they asked me to come to the store for a more formal one. Beforehand, I was practically shaking in the plastic chair they had me waiting in.
All of a sudden, my name was called and I was met with a smile that didn’t reach the eyes.
“Hello, how are you?” was replaced with “You didn’t sound black on the phone”, and my articulateness was praised as if I hadn’t been an honors student my whole life. Against all odds, I actually got the job - who knew that that woman could see my work habits through the color of my skin.
Growing up, I was never really aware of or exposed to microaggressions, and if there’s anything I learned from this job, it was how to fold shirts really fast and how people can be racist without even realizing it.
Weeks later, after putting up with this lizard looking woman’s comments with a smile for longer than I thought possible for myself, she approached me in a way that I just knew I was about to be ‘let go’.
“May I speak to you privately?” Oh god. It was probably because I didn’t laugh when she called me “Shanaynay” as a joke. I knew I should have laughed along, but I really wanted to fight her, and I couldn’t even manage a grin. I tentatively followed her into an office in the back of the store.
She smiled her wide scary smile. “Oh you know how much I love your braids - they make you look just like Alicia Keys” (I literally look nothing like Alicia Keys, not even a little bit). Her clammy unwelcome hand clasped one of them, and it took everything I had not to slap it away. I gave her a tight smile. “But I’m not sure how our customers feel about them. We’re trying to promote a very clean-cut environment in this store, and as pretty as they are-” she grabbed another braid. I was going to lose it. “-they’re not acceptable in the workplace” she said with a sympathetic look on her face, as if Becky (I don’t know her name so I’m just going to call her Becky) who works the registers didn’t have literally bright blue hair.
“Now I don’t want you to think that I’m being racist - my daughter’s boyfriend is black, and one of my son’s closest school friends is too. I love your culture!” she assured me, as if that makes up for her blatant bigotry.
I smiled at her again. “Noted.” She was lucky that I was actually planning to take them out that weekend, but at that point I knew that I  wanted to keep them forever.
With her hands still around my hair, still unwelcome, I wondered how long she had  been waiting to tell me this. I literally had braids for the six weeks I had been working there. I guess she was just waiting until she figured out if I was one of those “cool black people” or not. You know, the ones that ignore “small” stuff like that. The ones that weren’t so “sensitive”
She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Barbara, your lemon squares were fire, but your blatant racism - not so much