Last Monday, I woke up and was in a great mood. I was starting a new work contract and was pretty excited about the opportunity. Because of this, I decided to dress a tad nicer than normal.
I wanted to look as good as I felt. I decided on a navy blue blazer, dark jeans, crisp white shirt, and my brand new black boots. Wearing a tie crossed my mind, but in the end, having my neck free won out. Feeling great, I decided to put an extra oomph to my look by adding a pocket square and wearing my custom brown messenger bag that was given to me as payment for modelling eons ago.
As I was walking down the street listening to Thundercat’s “Drunk”, I spotted a white couple walking side by side who had all the earmarks of “tourist” – backpack, endless head turning, that lost look of amazement, cargo shorts, and just not seeming like they are from San Francisco. As I was walking within 10 feet of them, the male saw me and immediately started to zip up his lady’s bag and walk directly behind her. As I realised this, I stopped and lent on a store window.
Pissed off and hurt, I was honestly going to break down and cry. Normally these bouts of racism don’t bother me. I face them in one way or another every day. This is a look inside of what it means to be Black: No matter how soft you speak, how straight you walk, or how nice you are dressed, you are a menace.

Hours later, I posted about this experience online and received nearly unanimous support. Again, I wasn’t writing about the purse clutch as if it was the first time it happened to me. Events like this occur in my life every day. If I posted every racist incident that I am involved in, I wouldn’t have enough time in the day to hold down a job. However, I wanted to point out that even if I am not wearing a hoodie or walking with pants half off my ass, I am still seen the same way. I was happy with the responses – “I am so sorry to hear about this, those people are stupid, keep your head up, there is nothing wrong with you.”
Top Comments
And yet conversely accusing someone of gaslighting has the same affect and negates their opinion.
My first thought, as a white woman when I read your experience was "That's absolutely awful, I can't believe such behaviour STILL happens in this day & age, I am SO sorry this is happened to you"
The main reason for the middle part of that statement is because it is so far from my reality, not just due to my race but I think also due to the community I live in & grew up in because it is majority white so it is very rare to see something like that & also not being of colour I am sure I'm less aware of it too.
I have experienced what you've described and I think, from my experiences it happens for 2 reasons... 1. As I mentioned above, we only know what we know and what we experience and for the majority of people such behaviour is not part of our "reality" so people don't want to believe that it does happen/exist (that applies to all those scenarios you mentioned and more) but 2. I think it's also that sometimes people do read to much into things due to their continued experiences so people want to believe that that could be the circumstances here because they don't want to believe that blatant racism is still happening.
It certainly doesn't excuse it at all & that's not what I'm doing - just talking from my experience of course.
But truly, I am SO SORRY that this EVER happens to anyone