My first reaction to reading about the incident was that something was odd, something was wrong. I mean, you go to a deli and end up getting frisked by the clerk. It's odd. And it's happened to me before. When I was a kid, I used to get frisked before I left a neighborhood convenience store that I used to frequent. I've had cops stop me, while I was just walking up the street, question me, ask me to turn around, inspect me.
So, I know the feeling. That's why when I heard that Forest said he wouldn't be returning to the deli, I absolutely understood what he felt and meant. Anything humiliating or harmful enough from people or circumstances is good reason to cut yourself off from the situation.
Then I wondered a little bit more. Curious what was behind the incident, what was happening, what was the clerk thinking.
I think prejudice is mostly unconscious and not obvious. One reason I feel this way is that I've spent plenty of time in a predominantly white community, and I know, unconsciously, people see someone like me differently; I think this stuff is deeply embedded in the brain, through years of wrong or right evolution. I lived for awhile in a much more diverse community, so the wiring is different; people there saw me as their uncle, brother, Dad, teacher. Not as a foreign object shoved up in there.
So, I know it's possible that you can be suspected, mistreated, abused even unconsciously by people who are unaware of their own conditioning.
Is that what happened to Forrest?
Maybe.
It is strange. Goes into a deli, probably not particularly aggressive or sneaky, just wanting some lunch; ends up getting frisked. I think it would shake up anyone.
Or the clerk is touchy. Maybe people have been coming in and boosting them for their chips and salsa, or whatever. Maybe he's on the look-out, might even say paranoid. So, any old movement that looks suspicious is...well...suspect.
That happens too. I know I'm watchful just walking up the street. I've been jumped, harassed, and so on. I'm a watchful kind of guy. Of course, these days I know not to take it too far.
Also, what we can take too far is thinking everything someone does is racist or sexist or prejudice in some way. My mother used to do that to me. When I was a youth, I used to hate Joan Rivers. My Mom blamed my vehemence for Joan on her being a woman and me being male and not understanding her. Well, that's my Mom's twisted logic. What I can tell you today, is that I was a kid and I didn't understand Joan's humor. That's all. My mother didn't understand her kid at all. Too busy with her hidden agenda.
It's just as possible we don't understand the clerk at the deli.
What I think is that we really don't know. I don't think the clerk is evil. I think he made an error, however.
And I think Forest is correct in never returning to that deli again.
I know this too: One viewpoint is that Forest is upstanding, doesn't look like a thief, this shouldn't be happening to someone like him. Strangely, if you look at that argument close enough, it is also a prejudice viewpoint. As if, if he were homeless there would be better reason to suspect him. Or a CEO of a huge corporation could never be a common thief. Or that someone can tell just by looking at someone whether they are suspect. It's all image. So, it's all false.
It sort of makes me think of the old classic movie with Henry Fonda, 12 Angry Men. The jury has to decide the verdict of a murder case in which the suspect was an immigrant, and all the jurors, but one, is ready to have the defendant convicted so they can go home. One hold-out keeps things dragging along because he refuses to brush it all off and instead urges his peers to look a little deeper. All of their prejudices or hang-ups eventually get laid out on the table. Slowly but surely, the tables are turned until the only hold-out is the one that still thinks the suspect is guilty. A very revealing story.
While it's easy to dismiss, easy to use preconceptions to make decisions and judgments, it is important to see that such an approach is always skewed and garbled no matter to whom or how you apply it.
And this goes for the clerk and those certain the clerk's intentions were malicious.
What is important is how we look. At everything.
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