Zara's manager is a racist, classist ignoramus!

Shortly, after I posted my last entry, a friend wrote to me describing her experience at Zara. I was shocked at the blatant racism and classism that was directed towards her by Zara's manager. Although I've had similar experiences (although not to the same extent), I was appalled by the vulgarity and unprofessionalism shown by this particular person at Zara. Judging people based on skin colour and their appearance is a dated ideology that should not be tolerated whatsoever. Zara needs to be exposed. It doesn't stop at individuals but the people behind that individual who give them the right to act in demeaning ways. I've posted the story below as written by Samantha Peters herself. If you are on facebook, please join the facebook group and let us mobilize around this issue. We will not be silent any longer!


By Samantha Peters

"I was at Zara (in the Eaton Centre). I usually dress presentable, but it was a cold winter day, so I was dressed too "scruffy" for that store. I had bought (just the day before) a dress because it was the last one in my size. When I went home, my mom said that I should return it because it didn't look good on me. So I went to Zara to return it.

The cashier was about to ring it in and had to get his manager to sign the return. She looked me up and down and said "I can't return this, you wore it!". Mind you, I never wore the dress. I was like no, I bought this yesterday (and explained her the situation). I then said, why would I wear something and return it?, that's tacky! She continued by stating, "well, it looks like something YOU would do".

She then wrote all over my receipt so that I couldn't return it elsewhere, took a bag from the garbage and put my dress back into. I broke down and tears, and no one said anything. The store was packed!! It was a couple of days before Christmas."

I will no longer be silent!

Recently, too much racist shit (excuse my language but it's necessary) has been happening to me and I have been too silent about it for too long. I will no longer continue to support systems of oppression by remaining silent, I will no longer participate in my own domination by perpetrating the silence and secrecy that is crucial to oppression and the abuses of power. From now on, I will be rewriting personal incidents that I have personally experienced. As well as a form of resisting, this will be my way of trying to make sense of the incidents by reflecting and trying to place them within an analytical framework. Please bear with me.

Scenario #1

About two weeks ago, I walked into a certain futon store in Toronto. I proceeded to browse my way through the store but since I had been to that particular store only a couple of days before, I decided to focus on a particular futon that I really liked. Eventually after a few minutes of looking me up and down from behind the desk, the white man wearing a turban approached me and asked whether I was interested in the futon. I answered yes and pointed to which futon I was interested in. For some reason, this man felt that it was still necessary that he direct me towards the less expensive futons at the back of the store despite the fact that I had already pointed to the one I was interested in. Nevertheless, I decided to ignore his efforts to redirect me by going over to look at the futon covers and as soon as I approached the futon covers, I was met with a very loud "Oh those covers are too expensive." When I confronted him and asked whether he had a problem with me, he laughed and replied "I don't understand. Is there a problem?" laughing away as if I had just cracked a really funny joke. I then turned to walk out of the store angry, frustrated, humiliated and without a futon.

Scenario #2

A few days ago, I walked into a spring rolls around lunchtime and it was packed so we (a friend and I) waited to be seated. A waiter came up to us and asked for how many. I said for two. He looked around and said that it was really packed so we'd have to wait anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes. (Side note: From the entrance of this particular restaurant it is not possible to see the entire seating area) We were tired, hungry and that did not seem like to long to wait so we said we'd wait. Two minutes later, an asian man and his girlfriend walked in. When they said they were looking for a table for two, the waiter at the door replied "sure!" without even pausing - that is until he saw me looking at him. And then he quickly said "actually, there's a take out branch just two doors down which is less packed." Note, he did bother to inform us of this during our conversation. Rather, his immediate response "sure" and then quick change of direction informed me that in fact, there WERE tables of two. Just not tables of two, for a black person. I turned to walk out in frustration, anger and with a growling stomach.

Riding the Rocket is NOT the better way!

NO ONE should have to wait one whole hour for a bus! Especially on a cold cold snowy winter's night! Yuh heard?! Last night I thought my toes would literally freeze up. And they almost did. This particular bus that I take home everyday is notorious for keeping people waiting but yesterday I think it must have hit it's best record yet with ONE HOUR! Well, in actuality there were two buses in one hour. The first one arriving after thirty five minutes quickly filled up as was to be expected and who knew the next one would take so damn long?! Downtown for goodness sake? And what makes this whole thing worse, is that it is not an irregular occurrence. Some particular streetcars are also infamous for this! Arriving after half an hour and all three of them turning out to be suddenly full! It's absolutely ridiculous! Can anybody say structural violence?? The TTC system really needs to be revamped so that it can actually work! Because as of now, it's not working and Riding the Rocket is definitely NOT the better way! I don't know why anybody who has the power to do something about it, does not realize this. Probably because they don't have to take the TTC on a regular basis. I am up to my neck sick of waiting and waiting in the cold for that long! Especially now that temperatures are dropping. What are people supposed to do? Seriously, the TTC needs to get it's act together! The current one is growing old and it won't be too long before people have had enough.