Because I know it's a facade, and wonder what's lurking behind it.

polite. As she aged she had a few ministrokes. She would be quite confused at times. And always polite and gracious. There was no facade. Her sister told me they were brought up to put others first. Nothing hiding there. Even when my grandfather got sick with altzheimers she didn‘t complain, to a fault. Granted she had a father who was incredibly kind and married a very sweet man. And had two devoted kids. Life was not easy for her as her sweet husband went off to WWll in the infantry when he was 40. He came back wounded. But he did not have ptsd thank god. Maybe she never had a trauma to make her not trust. Thinking of others first was how she went through life. And I think she found it very rewarding. As anyone does. She did have the age of innocense thing going where she knew exactly what was up with everyone but kept it to herself. So it is not as if she was without defence. She was a lover of history too and read voraciously. So it was not as though she was naive. She was a good presbyterian in that she liked to make fun of herself. Which we all inherited. So she had depth. And self knowledge. I guess I‘m trying to say you can‘t generalize. Sometimes there is nothing lurking underneath. Except for perhaps a flapper doing the charleston, when nobody is looking.

I love hearing about your grandmother and that my generalization
has exceptions, her being a case in point.

Thanks too for reminding me of the dangers of over-generalizing.

but that's no excuse for his disrespectful attitude. My way of showing disgust at what I'd just witnessed would probably have been to check in my purse to see if I might have the change -- which would most likely annoy the cashier even further.

A lot of times they deal with idiots and it could be he just dealt with one a few minutes
before you came in.

He's in a bad mood and the person wants to pay for a small item with a $10

He's maybe running low on change or what ever . So in his mind he thought " great"

another fucking idiot I have to deal with today.

Don't look for racism in everything because sometimes you may see just what you want to see..

This is getting ridiculous.

because so much talk on the news. Something, I would automatically assume was just a store owner having a bad day if it happened to me, happened. Except I‘m primed. And even I wonder if it was malicious bias. And what must it be like to be primed all the time. Your whole life. It would be pretty dam hard.

(I am interested in this too because I was stalked and gossiped about maliciously. Store clerks would say “I don‘t find anything wrong with you“ which would upset and sooth me at the same time. Now have ptsd so the parallels to my own life make me question this ....because I can be very afraid I‘m not being left alone in my life. And often I am wrong. But often I am right. So it is hard to heal).

I would have said “having a bad day?“ or something like that. I don‘t accuse people of being something unless I‘m dam sure they are.

I too have been a cashier. In very, very busy situations and I would never put any stress I am feeling on my customers. Customers are always right. You can say I‘m sorry but I can‘t make change for your two dollars. Saying a big fat “NO“ with negative body language is just ignorant. I‘ve done that job at various places and I‘ve never been rude.

on the third shift a few years ago. I was always nice to everyone. It's tuff making change late at night. You could be fired for having more than a hundred bucks in the till late at night. A few people breaking large bills and one could run out of small bills. I use to tell folks at that point that the only way I can break that is to give you 5 or 10 bucks back in dimes and nickels. That would change their minds.

I was accused of being a racist one time at the store, I'm and old pale male, I reached in my wallet and pulled out my membership card for NAACP and asked to see his. Even if you are not black you can and should support the NAACP and join.

My minor in college was Cultural Anthropology, so here is my out look on "racism". It is not an either, or label. If there is a scale, no one is at the extreme ends of that scale. The best anyone can do is to be aware of that so you can always be self-correcting when you catch yourself moving the wrong direction on that scale.

so, not as often. But I still do. I know I have to work on sexiest thinking more and find myself learning all of the time. Sometimes it is pointed out to us and other times we learn on our own. How often do we prejudge a person based on another person that looks like or has a mannerism that we can tie to another person. The new person is not the other person, so sometimes we have to realize that and sometimes that is not so easy, but we can move in that direction. It is always much easier to form a judgement about another person and not so easy to do that about ourselves.

And see if reaction would be different

to the woman in front of me. I actually had time to reflect that it was great that they employed a bilingual cashier. Right before it was my turn an elderly Vietnamese man with very limited english skills came up and tried to ask the cashier about something. The cashier kind of brushed him off and sent him to a manager and after the man left he made those ching chony type of sounds that racists do when making fun of Asians. In mere minutes I went from liking the cashier to an intense distaste for the man and his very obvious racism.

No, I did not call him out for it but I never got in his line again and I felt I learned something about people. They can really suck and first impressions can be very wrong.