Racism? absolutely

Yesterday provided an unexpected and jarring experiences, one of the more notable since I came to this country almost 9 years ago. Keep in mind that I came here with no particular understanding of racial relations in the US, and in particular white-black issues. My views have not been colored by growing up in this society. With that said, I am white, and not usually perceived as a foreigner, meaning that what I do encounter in this respect is based on people's instinctive grasp of me as someone who had grown up here. The reason it is important to remember this is that I had no preconceived notions coming here about either race or racial relations. Everything I've learned, I learned from living here.

What led to the experience yesterday was my discovery that my son's passport had expired last month, as I was going through some stuff in preparation of an upcoming trip. Looking online, we discover that yesterday is the last day we can submit an application through a post-office; beyond that we would have to go to a regional office and waste the entire day there to get same-day processing.

So we pulled up the list of passport application offices in our area, and looked up the nearest ones that might be open on Saturday. We settled on the one in Berkeley. I took my son with me, and off we went.

I despise Berkeley - it's such a conceited, self-important, self-absorbed, narrow-minded, exclusionary, hateful town that I generally try to avoid having to visit. It's practically in the air. Walking the streets of Berkeley, especially around University and Shattuck, is one of the most consistently unpleasant experiences I have ever had to face regularly. It's not the "mind-your-own-business" mentality of Manhattan, which I simply dislike, but rather more along the lines of "you're-all-wrong-and-we-know-it-so-fuck-you" vibe that emanates from pretty much everyone - especially the "fuck you" part.

Having lived in the area for the past few years I generally steel myself whenever I have business in Berkley, and this was no exception. In other words, I didn't exactly expect a great experience, but this was a simple process, we'd be in and out and on our merry way. What transpired was anything but.

We got to the post office around 9:30Am, the passport office was almost empty, and soon we were up. The lady who greeted us was black and angry. Or rather, her entire demeanor changed as soon as she saw us - me and my fair-haired bespectacled white boy. She became extremely, uh, proper. Fine, I'm used to that already; it's not difficult to observe coming into this country that the black community in the US has a tremendous amount of anger seething just underneath the surface, although I've noticed a generational difference (younger folks seem more upbeat).

But it was the discussion itself that gave me chills. The hostility was palpable. When she let me know that the mother would have to be there, she sat back and crossed her fingers and had this smirk on her face, and her tone was dripping with condescension and derision.

So we went back home, grabbed mom, went back. By the time we got there a second time, the office was a lot busier, and there was a minority (hispanic) family in front of us in line. The passport lady was quite pleasant with them, even cracking a joke or two, assisting them in figuring out little things when they didn't even know what to ask, volunteering information... what one might expect from a customer service rep. As soon as they were out the door and we were next, her mood changed again. She didn't even look at us; instead she spent the next 20 minutes ever so slowly and methodically finalizing the previous family's application, making sure that every little step was taken deliberately... and slowly. In fact, once our kids started complaining that they were hungry, she became even slower. We did our best to calm them down, but it was only when a new family walked in the door - minorities again - that she sped up a bit, finished her work, and grunted in my direction.

We gave her the application, she scanned it, then stopped as her joy became perceptible when she informed us that she needed my son's social security number to complete the application. In fact, she wanted not just the number, but the card. We didn't have the number with us, but I suspect it would not have mattered; she did the whole routine of sitting back, crossing her arms, and dismissing us with one of those looks, the power stare that civil servants sometimes get knowing they can't get fired. That she could have warned me about this when she first sent me home was obvious; she had let the folks in front of us know of a number of similar little gotchas voluntarily. She chose not to.

Simply put, we were the wrong color and wrong class for that office. We had enough time to go home and back, but my wife wisely suggested that our application will most likely end up being lost if we completed it there. So we looked for an alternative.

We ended up finishing the process with the absolutely wonderful, cheerful and helpful staff at the USPS Moraga office. The lady who assisted us there was so delightful that my wife and I both agreed we'll take our daughter there again next year when her passport expires, even though that office is farther from our home than at least three others. They went out of their way to help, they made us feel welcome. The difference was so striking it took me a couple of hours just to shake the impact.

So there you have it. Berkley something like 98 and counting, me 0. At least now I've experience a bit of the racism everyone's so concerned about, although I must say, its direction was a bit surprising.