Three young men enter a Polo store in some outlet in New Jersey. Two of the kids, the best dressed ones, spend their time looking and gathering shirts and sweaters while the other one, the darkest one and the only one with dread locks, walks around with a bored and oblivious look in his eyes. After Thirty minutes, and what seemed to the rasta like an eternity, they all walk to the counter. A chubby girl stuffed in a two sizes too small polo shirt with a golden insignia and “Russia” written across, fills two overweight paper bags with all the clothes the two twenty something year olds gathered. After they pay for the overpriced yet “sale of the year” clothes, one of the two that were looking around, the shortest one of the three, says something to the other two in Spanish and then turns around to the girl and asks her in a heavy undefined accent:
-Can you give me more bags for these clothes?-
The blond girl smugishly replies:
-No, we can only give two bags per costumer-
The other well dressed kid, the more Caucasian looking and the tallest one of the three by a long shot, asks the girl politely with the same odd accent:
-but couldn’t you please give us one more? This bags are kind of heavy.-
The girl, with an annoyed tone to her voice barks back:
- The policy is only two bags per costumer!-
The black kid, who had been reclined against the counter giving his back to the register, turns around and without missing a bit asked:
-Is that policy only for blacks and latinos or also for white suburban women like the one that walked out with four bags five minutes ago?-
Shocked, the girl tries to mumble something but before she is able to utter a word, the over-educated black kid demands:
-I would like to talk to the manager please-
The sales girl walks away with a concerned and astonished look on her face, while the two confused kids talk to the black one in Spanish. After a couple minutes the girl comes back with a shorter and brunette version of herself who asks with a fake smile on her face:
-How may I help you?-
The young black kid responds without moving the dreadlocks off that cover one of his eyes:
-Hi. We just bought two hundred and fifty dollars worth of merchandise and we plan to go to other stores. These bags are quite heavy and I’m afraid they are going to rip off after an hour of carrying them around. Could we please have some more bags?-
The girls redistributes the clothes with another two bags. The three boys walk out laughing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Andrés,
ReplyDeleteSoy participe de este evento (The Tallest one), y como turista que era en su momento, me pregunto porque suceden esas cosas y por que la reacción de la gente cuando una persona extranjera que es diferente tanto física como culturalmente, es tratado de forma diferente, gracias por colocar esta historia para poder visualizar cosas tan sencillas pero impactantes.