Book Review - Unacceptable

Tina Laage – Paper 2

Buysse

Composition 2

Due: March 1st, 2018

Unacceptable

Whenever I think about being put into a sticky situation, I immediately tell myself that I will be able to say or do the right thing. I am an avid supporter of racial and gender equality. I will speak up when I think that a person is wrong for saying something regarding their race or gender. These problems have been dragged out for far too long, and I am baffled that people are still concerned with other people’s skin color. We live in the 20th century, and skin color has been around since the beginning of time, yet, people still want to argue about it. I am constantly flabbergasted. I am friends with a woman named Meshay, and she is African American. She is tall, lean, and smart. She is one of my best friends, and I am lucky to have her. She is like a tall glass of pinot nior and I the Moscato – the peanut butter to my jelly.
        I am from a small town called Brooten. It consists of four churches, three bars, and 1one gas station. While I was in high school, there was one African American family and two Mexican families that lived in the town, and that was all. My mother always did an excellent job of teaching us children that we should always accept everyone: That was not the case in Brooten. It is rare to see colored people in stores and when people do, they stare and whisper.

Meshay has come to visit me and my family a few times and one time when her and I were getting ready for a night out, we decided to go to the liquor store to buy some drinks. We went in, stared at the racks, pondered for a while and finally decided on some pre- mixed drinks. We walked to the aisle that was next to the coolers and there was a couple standing in the middle of the aisle. We walked by them toward the other bottles. I went first and then Meshay was trailing after me. When passing the couple, she brushed against the same girl as I did. If the woman had stepped one step to the side, we wouldn’t have had to touch her, but she didn’t. We politely said “excuse me” as we were passing them, and when we did, the woman didn’t move. We both brushed against her when squeezing between the racks and her, and immediately she mumbled under her breath, “oh my god, can you f**king stop?” We both apologized and said, “excuse me.” She got extremely defensive and said, “Well can’t you walk around the other way?” I told her I didn’t think that it was necessary since they were the only two people in the aisle, and we said excuse me and thought it was enough.  “No, you shouldn’t have to push me around to get where you want to be.”

 At this point, she is directing the conversation straight at Meshay and I stood between the two because the woman was becoming extremely hostile. She was waving her finger in Meshay’s face, so I asked her to please stop, we were sorry, and we will just proceed with our time. Meshay was just standing there silent. At this time, she responded with “God, I can’t stand you n**gers”. It was apparent that the problem wasn’t that we had brushed against her, it was that Meshay’s skin color was making her uncomfortable. Immediately I became extremely angry. I told her that she had a rotten soul and we continued to argue with one another for a minute. Her boyfriend just stood to the side, as if this wasn’t the first time it had happened. I needed to compose myself and reevaluate things. I told Meshay “let’s go, I won’t waste my time with selfish people like this.”