(I work in a store that sells scarves, hosiery, handbags and jewelry — all pretty budget-friendly, not too high-end. My manager is not only very incompetent, but also racist. She basically tells her employees to hover over anyone who looks “foreign” because she is certain they are shoplifting. I always refuse to do this, and I get a lot of crap from her for it. Our lighter scarves and shawls are very popular with Muslim women because they come in lots of colours and prints and are often the right size to be worn as a hijab. One day a woman comes in, gathers some scarves, and goes into the fitting room with them.)

Manager: “What is she doing with those?! Go look over there and check on her!”

(I feel apprehensive, since I know most of our customers who are followed or “checked on” like this know exactly why it was happening, and either leave or don’t buy anything.)

Manager: “She’s probably stuffing scarves in her bag right now! Why else would she go into the fitting room?!”

Me: *fed up* “Seriously? If she wants to wear these as a hijab and try them on first, you can’t expect her to try them on in the middle of the store!”

(My manager fell silent and let it go. She later gave me a whole spiel about “not talking back,” even though I had been right and the lady had bought a lot of scarves. I left that job shortly after, and made sure upper management heard about her behaviour. Among other things, she had been throwing away job applications from people with “foreign” names!)

(I’m a Mexican tourist in London. I’m in a store, talking to myself in Spanish, when a store clerk hears me.)

Clerk: “Great… another [slur].”

(This particular slur is a derisive term for Mexican immigrants into the USA that assumes that they arrived illegally to the States by swimming across the Grande River.)

Me: “I… What?!”

Clerk: “I used to live in Texas, and we got a lot of you [slur]s there. I didn’t think there were also [slur]s in England. Just because you can swim doesn’t mean we have to take you in!”

Me: “Well… there are, unfortunately, some immigrants who try to get into the US by swimming across the Grande River. But the ‘border’ between Mexico and the UK is the freaking Atlantic Ocean. I can’t even begin to imagine why you’d think I swam across an entire ocean to get here.”

(The clerk just stood there, confused.)

I have an Eastern European first name, for no other reason than that my parents liked the sound of it.

I’m working for a temp agency and I get a call to come down to the centre for a day-long job out in the surrounding countryside. A couple of other temps have volunteered their cars to take the rest of us out to where we meet the client and follow him out to the field we were working in. We do the work, get paid for a full eight hours after working for six, and everyone piles back into the cars and goes home happy.

On the way back, the driver catches my eye in the rearview mirror and tells me that she wasn’t initially sure about having me in her car. When I ask her why not, she replies that when she saw my name on the list she thought I was Polish and that, “you wouldn’t talk to any of us.” All I could think of to say was that I had been born in [Midlands Town] and had lived in England all my life.

It made me so angry, partly because this was the first time someone had discriminated against me in a direct way, although by mistake, partly because I find any kind of racism or discrimination baffling — I’ve realised that it isn’t so much that I love everyone equally but that I’m indifferent to everyone equally — and partly because by admitting to it she seemed to expect that I would agree with her sentiments or find her expressing them like that to be acceptable.

I kind of wish I’d made a fuss but we were still several miles out with no other way for me to get back, and I didn’t fancy getting kicked out of the car for having a go at someone I wasn’t likely to ever see again.

(I’m Asian-American but I grew up in the South, so I have a bit of an accent. It tends to throw people off, especially working at a southern chain restaurant.)

Me: “How are y’all doing today?”

Customer: “Stop faking an accent.”

Me: “I was actually raised in Tennessee, sir.”

Customer: “That doesn’t mean you have to fake an accent to fit in.”

Me: *concentrating on not speaking with an accent* “O…kay…”

Related:
Don’t You Speak Asian? – Part 2
Don’t You Speak Asian?

(I am playing a popular computer game with, among other things, multiple “classes” you can play as, such as Offense or Tank, and a voice chat system. The character I chose is a Support character, meaning she can heal other characters. The game is going well, and I notice that one of my teammates is at critical health.)

Me: *over voice chat* “Okay, [Teammate #1], I’ll be right over to heal you up.”

Teammate #1: “No, I don’t want your healing!”

Me: “All right…You do you…”

Teammate #1: “Hey! Hey! I’m dying over here! A little help!?”

Me: “Yup, be right over!”

Teammate #1: “Not you, b****!”

Me: “I – What? That’s rude! Besides, I am the only healer on the team! If you don’t want my healing, you are well and truly screwed.”

Teammate #2: “Dude, let her help you.”

Teammate #1: “I don’t want her f****** help! But can someone heal me?”

Me: “I’m not even going to try to help you.”

Teammate #1: *dies*