Writing Prompt #7: I Didn't Stand Up, and It Haunts Me
Silence can feel safe, but the weight of regret is even heavier
It was sometime around 2010. Obama was president. (Remember those days? Good times.) I had an “I ♥️ Obamacare” bumper sticker on my car that someone in my mixed-but-mostly-conservative and mostly white community had vandalized. And I was waiting in the checkout line at Walmart with my daughter.
The line was not moving. Like, at all. Someone up front had a great big order and the cashier was taking her time, chatting while checking them out. The rest of us had been standing for what was probably just five minutes but felt more like twenty. And the line was growing longer and longer.
Then something magical happened. We heard a store announcement:
Manager Ronda to register nine, please. Ronda to register nine!
They were about to open a new register. Score! The kid and I mosied over to register nine. A young Black man followed. We noticed that he had just a few things in his arms—some cleaning supplies and a tabletop ironing board—so we suggested he get in front of us rather than stand there holding his bulky items without a cart. He graciously accepted.
As we stood in line waiting for Ronda, we joked that maybe we’d outsmarted ourselves because no one seemed to be coming. So, we enjoyed some friendly banter as we waited, contemplating whether line-jumping again would be the power move.
Then Ronda showed up.
Another Black woman had also heard the call to register nine, and she’d beat us all there. Ronda checked her out efficiently and the woman headed out with her purchases.
That was when shit got weird.
The young Black man stepped up to the register. Rhonda nodded toward the woman who was already exiting the automatic doors, then looked at the Black man and said, “So, you’re together?"
The Black man looked confused for a moment, then said, “Oh! No, it’s just me.”
Rhonda glowered at him with a look of growing skepticism. “But you were in the store together? With her?" Rhonda tipped her head toward the door.
“No, ma’am. I’m here by myself.”
“Oh, really…”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So, you’re saying you’re in here alone?”
What the actual fuck was happening here? I glanced at my daughter and she shot back the an expression that mirrored my wtf thoughts.
The man nodded. He never lost his patience. He stayed calm, polite, and friendly, smiling through the encounter. He finished checking out and left the store with Ronda glaring after him.
Then my daughter and I checked out. Ronda brightened, newly friendly and charming. We remained matter-of-fact, both in silent agreement that we’d use cold detachment to express our displeasure with the encounter.
But we never said anything.
And we should have.
We should have called Ronda out for racial profiling.
I’ve been haunted by my inaction ever since. It happened 16 years ago, and here I am, still sitting with it, still wondering what went wrong inside my head. Was I too worried about painting a target on my own back to stand up for someone being mistreated?
I wonder sometimes whether I didn’t say anything because the man handled the situation so well himself. He was calm. He smiled. He didn’t escalate. But then it also hit me that he might have to live like this every day in our little town just to survive—to swallow his anger at injustices that were more than personal, more than just a one-off, they were systemic. He knew that objecting would make things worse and he chose to keep peace.
But that wasn’t a moment of grace for him. He was donning armor. I’d watched him deploy survival skills in a Walmart checkout, and I was too stunned and anxious to say anything about it.
It’s a moment of silence I’ll always regret.
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