Flora Seidler
I’m struggling to strap my mask over my ears as I walk through the sliding doors into work, relieved as the sweat on my forehead begins to dry from the air conditioning. I wave at coworkers as I struggle to clock in because the machine is so old and the buttons are so stiff. I walk up to the service desk and wonder if today my supervisor will remember to ask me if I have any symptoms of COVID-19, as if I would be there if I did. She doesn’t.
I rush to my register, log in, turn on my light that indicates my aisle is open and call the next customer over with an erroneously eager attitude that raises my voice a few octaves. I observe the seemingly endless line of customers as a consequence of it being Sunday afternoon. The shift begins as usual, some customers wear masks while others complain about wearing them saying “I don’t buy into these masks.” With each occurrence, I have to decide whether to keep a loyal, happy, Jewel-Osco smile on my face and let them think they are right. I reply with a “stay safe and have a nice day!”
I ask my co-workers what they think about the riots ensuing all over the country and if they heard about George Floyd. We compare the absurdity of the different videos we have seen of policemen running down protesters, arresting them, and degrading them while also attempting to conceal our phones from our manager.
While I scan boundless groceries, I become distracted by a police officer walking in. He walks straight to the manager in customer service, he speaks into his vest. First, my customer and I exchange looks, then I turn around and raise my eyebrows to my coworker. My first thought was, ‘Did someone steal something’?
For some reason, I feel a pit in my stomach and a sweat on my forehead. The fluorescent lights seem to trap me in time. A middle-aged woman comes into my line and tells us there are looters in the next town over and to “Be safe!”. Another customer says that the Target down the street is being closed down early and barricaded because they are on their way to our town next, and to “Be safe!”. I can’t look at my phone because of the never-ending line of customers who each have something disapproving to say regarding the protestors and each telling me to stay safe, as if I am actually in danger. Everybody seems to be confusing the concept of looters and protestors and lumping them into the same category of people who just want to destroy everything in sight. Most customers try to tell me that these protests are dangerous and unnecessary and uncalled for. With each comment and with the knowledge that the police officer is still there, I finally identify the feeling I have as uneasiness and fright. Eventually, a customer asks me if the store is closing early, which causes me to panic even more. My manager swiftly approaches my register to tell both me and the customer that we will be closing at five o’clock. instead of 12 o’clock, making sure to inform each register after mine. Everyone seems to be panicked, trying to quickly collect their groceries and go before looters come and attack them for being white, since that is what they assume is being protested, ironically. And my pale skin informs them that I must agree, this is an undeserving attack on us white people.
I live in a town where I have to second guess putting a “Black Lives Matter” sign in my front lawn because of the high likelihood of it getting stolen, so this kind of reaction to the protests that are meant to defend Black lives isn’t so surprising.
Finally, Cassandra comes and relieves me for my break. I rush up the stairs into the break room, almost forgetting to log out of my register, and immediately check my phone (I have been itching to check my phone throughout my shift to check for updates on the protests that have taken over every social media platform and see if looters are actually coming to the store, but the Sunday afternoon rush has kept me occupied and away from my phone. The only source of information I have been forced to rely on all day is the word of republican customers) to check twitter. I see more police violence. Videos of police cars running down protestors, peaceful bystanders getting pepper sprayed floods my feed. I am alone in the break room. I text my friends and my mom asking them if they are seeing what is going on. They respond telling me to stay safe. I wonder what it is going to look like when we leave the store. Will we be escorted out? Will our ears be bombarded with police sirens? Will we have to run to our car? Will my car be okay?
After my fifteen-minute break is over, I walk back down. The store seems to be quieter, with less people. I get a chance to think rationally, at last. This is the first time where most of the conversation with customers has not been about the pandemic. Eventually, the time in which we were supposed to close early passes. The police officer from earlier has left. The store is down to a normal number of customers and workers who are buying late night snacks. While everything outside the store seems to be falling apart rapidly, everything inside stays the same. The fluorescent lights have not dimmed; I can’t tell if it’s dark outside yet. I hear cashiers in aisles three and four asking “So are we being looted or not?”
It is around seven o’clock now. The store is quiet, as it usually is on Sunday night, yet there is still a sense of doom hanging in the air. All of us still seem to be waiting for something to happen. A Black woman comes to my aisle and places down a bag of chips and a soda. It occurred to me: this is my first Black customer of the day. Everyone that has come in has been mostly white and has been warning me about Black looters all day. This woman isn’t a looter. Is this what I have been waiting for?
A police officer different from before steps in to line next to her and places a water bottle on the motion censored belt. One customer makes sure to thank him for his service. The woman seems to be above it all, pretending like he is not there, and I couldn’t determine if it was just me who felt the tension. I remember thinking ‘Is he looking at her?’, ‘Am I overreacting?’, ‘Is he going to say something to her, accuse her?’, ‘Would I step in and defend her?’, ‘Does she even need me to defend her?’ But they both buy their snacks, one after the other, and leave
Finally, my shift is over. I brace myself for what I am going to see. Hold my keys in my hand, getting ready to leave as soon as possible. There are less than twenty cars spread across the lonely parking lot. Traffic on the streets surround the store as usual. It seems as if the panic throughout the day was misplaced, false, and a waste of time. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t panic across the rest of the country. Why wasn’t anyone panicking about the acts of brutality that have been ensuing instead? Why aren’t we panicking about the appalling behavior of the police that has caused so much pain and loss? Why did I let these people scare me? Why have I let myself forget that it isn’t people who are looting that is destroying the country, but it is the condonement of the people who are meant to protect us that are provoking this outrage?
I come home to my mom and dad sitting on the couch in front of the tv with nonstop clips of stores being robbed and destroyed to rubble. The news shows a constant loop of people breaking windows and emptying stores until the shelves are utterly empty, while contrastingly Twitter is constantly updating with new videos shared by young people on the streets protesting for their rights. I am suddenly hit with the realization that my generation is being exposed to completely different content than the older generation. We are seeing devastating violence ensued by our law enforcement, tweets from the president that say, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, while the older generation only sees Black people looting a Target with no explanation other than they are violent and can’t let go of the past. No testimonies of outrage for those who have been killed are being focused on, only the destruction of their beloved Target. And this is why opposition to BLM calls for more funding for the police, more guns instead of justice for George Floyd, and countless other unarmed Black men and women who have been killed and their families left with no recompense, No Justice, No Peace.