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Invisible Black People
When I was a teenager, my mom told me on many occasions that my white friends would eventually pretend not to know me in public. She would often talk about how it would happen to her. For the longest time, the town I grew up in only had 2 full-fledged grocery stores, so anybody in town who went grocery shopping had a 50/50 chance of going to the store you were shopping in. My mom would say her white coworkers who were so warm and friendly in the workplace would completely ignore her if they saw her at the grocery store or any other business around town. She was nonexistent as far as they were concerned. It also only happened with white coworkers. Her black coworkers would stop for a chat, or at least make eye contact and smile.
Flash forward a few decades and I can definitely confirm the wisdom imparted by my mother from my own observations. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m terrible at remembering names, but I have a mind like a steel trap when it comes to remembering faces. If I’ve seen you before, I know I’ve seen you before. On many occasions, I have encountered white coworkers and former coworkers in public spaces and they have utterly ignored me. One incident I will always remember happened at the movie theater. For a little backstory, I had worked with one particular coworker on a special project for about 6 weeks. We worked together, in the same room, just a couple of feet from each other…
