My long-time employer decided to introduce a ‘Whites Only’ policy.
After a couple of decades with the business they showed me the door which now displayed the sign ‘Whites only beyond this point’.
I’m black.
My boss was quite good about it. The sign didn’t go on the front door, just back into the staff area. “We could still catch up socially, you know, outside work. You understand.” He also graciously said I could still be a customer. I guess our money is all the same colour, figuratively speaking.
The problem was, I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand at all.
The policy made no sense to me. How white do you have to be? They were quite clear about that actually. Fully white. Again, problematic for me, being fully black. A number of almost fully whites argued the point, though ‘almost’ wasn’t good enough. Fully white is fully white.
Despite the enormous disappointment, I’m grateful for one thing. At least I now understand who I used to work for. They ‘tolerate’ all sorts of people going about their daily lives, then retreat into their ‘white only’ sanctuaries to detox.
I imagine they hang such signs on the doors to their homes. If they don’t work with non-whites, they wouldn’t live with non-whites. Would they? Perhaps that gets awkward at times.
Segregation.
We’ve tried it before. It doesn’t work and for good reason. Too many signs and rules and exceptions. Ridiculous signs and rules. People are people. Yes, some are ridiculous, but you can’t have a sign for that either.
You’re probably thinking to yourself - there is no way a business would get away with a ‘Whites Only’ policy in 2022. No, not these days. Not with all the time and money spent on training the population to be inclusive.
So, you’ve probably guessed by now. I’m not black. I’m unvaccinated.