Insulted by Lupicia teas! Racist???

I can’t really say – if you dont get service you like, there’s definitely other places to go. But in the case of the mailings – it’s free only with purchases over $30. I went with my sister before and she bought me tea but since she paid, she got to sign up and got a free pamphlet.

At the very least, it seems like they were ignoring you. The reason they glommed onto your friend and not you, I have no idea. I like your reasoning of going one more time just to see how they treat you.

You say you clubbed together to buy, so at the time of purchase, who was in charge of the money? Who was actually doing the physical act of paying? If that was you, then yes I agree their behaviour was odd. If it was her, then to my eyes they simply perceived her as the customer and you as someone who had just come along but weren’t necessarily interested in purchasing at this time. They have to give the goods and the change to someone; they can’t possibly give it to both of you.

As for being judged by appearance, I would be a little cautious assigning such views to other people. Now, obviously I don’t know what it’s like to live where you live, but I believe that at least 95% of the time we experience someone doing something be perceive as rude, they’re not doing it on purpose. Just a moments lack of thought.

I would shop there again, if I were you. At least one more time. Preferably more, providing of course that they have something you actually want to buy. Gather a larger amount of information before you make your conclusion.

I would do a couple of experiments. Next time go in with a friend and do the same set up, except you pay, see how you get treated. And go in there by yourself to see how you get treated. Of course it could be just that one time, an employee just not thinking, or that particular person is racist

Oh man. I never like to outright dismiss the suggestion of racism, because I think that happens too often to people. Having worked in customer service for a while, I’ve seen a LOT of subtle and not-so-subtle race-based behaviour (both from customers and coworkers) that took me by surprise, for example:

-a woman who absolutely refused to be served by my black coworker at the till, and stormed away when we refused to open another till.
-a small, female Asian coworker who got customer after customer who was rude and pushy with the clear expectation that she would give them whatever they wanted – and no, none of the rest of us had customers like that so consistently.
-coworkers who ran to the back to put extra fried food in the frier baskets when they saw First Nations customers coming “because those people never buy anything that isn’t crap for you.”
-people desperately trying to pass Asian customers off to each other before they actually got to the till, based on the immediate assumption that said customers would be rude and cheap.
-etc., etc.

People I know basically denied ALL of those things – even the first one! – might have been racial when I discussed it with them. (That, or they agreed it was racial, but felt the behaviour was reasonable.)

It sure exists, and sometimes takes a while to identify. It might also not be outright “racism,” so much as racial “solidarity” in preferring to talk to your friend without actually having any negative feeling toward you. Which maybe isn’t as bad in the sense that it’s not malicious, but it certainly isn’t going to be comfortable for you.

Of course there could be other reasons why they focused so heavily on her, such as her signaling herself as “the customer” by paying, etc. Personally, I have such a terrible memory for faces that I can even “lose” my customer while they’re still in the store if there’s any kind of shuffle of people(!), so I tend to “glom” to mine as well, and more one person out of a couple than the other so I don’t get confused.

But I would go with your gut. Run “experiments” if you want, but don’t give them more credit than they earn. If you keep getting an icky feeling, you might not know the exact reason why, but who cares? It’s your money.

I used to go out to dinner regularly with a white friend and we noticed that often the waiter would either hand the check to her or slide it in her direction, automatically assuming the white person was paying. I’ve been to Chinese owned & operated beauty supply stores and have been treated horribly rudely, without provocation on my part, as if they expected trouble from me.

It’s a sad state of affairs when people make assumptions based on the shade of our skin, and as a person of color it’s not easy to explain how we intuitively come to recognize some of the most subtly racially-motivated behaviors. My white friend would not have believed that waiters do this had it not happened with us over and over at different restaurants.

I also have been assumed by quite a few white people over the years to be the cleaning service when I’ve lived in mostly-white neighborhoods. I’ve had white people ask me who I work for when I’m getting my mail or leaving the complex. The most bizarre incident happened a couple of weekends ago when I was buying cleaning products at Walmart. A white lady cut in front of me in line because she assumed I was USING the cleaning products rather than buying them!!

I always try give people a second chance and let go of my anger and frustration. You never know what may be going on to influence their behavior toward you and at the very least you can feel bad for their ignorance. Sorry this happened to you.

Even when knowing crappy stuff like that happens, still hearing the individual stories……Good Grief. In some ways….the unintentional stuff is worse, though I know I’ve done it myself….daydreaming and having a stupid moment. But when someone does that to me, I can’t help but wonder if they have so little regard for me to not pay enough attention? So I then try to remember to pay better attention.

I’m white, I live in a white/black/arabic/orthodox jewish neighborhood, and I clean the bathrooms, lobby and parking lot at my work, I’ve had a few people that exhibit surprise that I am the one who does the cleaning. One time I just happened to walk into the bathroom when this woman (Not even going to call her a lady.) Berating a coworker of mine for not sweeping out the bathrooms while she was there. Now I had just punched in, and was doing my 1st check, I had the broom and dustpan in my hand. “Um, excuse me, Ma’am….cleaning is MY job and I just got on. So please let my coworker go back to her duties?” the poor girl was in tears when she left the bathroom.
Some people!
Daniel Scott, yeah, worked several years in customer service, (low end retail…kind of a ‘buy out’ store.) so been there, done that with every single one of the ones you mentioned.

And with holidays coming up, alot of people’s worse behaviors will start cropping up, including my own. LOL. I have bit of a temper.