Reconciling Two Racialized Moments
There’s a woman who I work with at the food bank, I’ll call her Yvette, who never gets my name right. She just turned 70, a Black woman with kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. She calls me Mary most often, and also Margaret, Maggie, and once, Marla. I usually start giggling. She’ll pause, say “Damn! Hold on. It’s Martha, isn’t it?”, then giggle with me. It feels like a sweet interaction, even an intimacy between us.
Mostly I ask Yvette about her family or we bicker about our mutual dislike of bagging frozen fish sticks. She doesn’t know I have a pile of thoughts and questions I don’t share. Like:
Have you not known other Marthas (or Maggies or Margarets)? Is it a lack of familiarity with the name that has you only remember it starts with an M?
Is this something that happens to you with anyone, no matter their identity? Has this been the case your whole life, or is it happening more now that you’re 70?
Does not remembering my name have something to do with distinquishing between white faces? When I’m around a phenotype I don’t spend a lot of time with, it takes me a while to see individualizing features.
I contribute my labor for free here once a week in an act of redistribution, while at age 70 you feel lucky to make $5 over minimum wage through an AARP placement program. I know from our conversations that our culture has not materially indicated that your desires, yearnings, and basic humanity matter…to pretty much the same proportion that mine do. I’m not going to make a fuss over my name. It’s the least I can do.
A few months ago, I wrote up a lease for Ayana, an almost-40 year old Black woman about to rent my basement apartment, in town for a few months from Louisiana for contract work. (I’ve fictionalized her to be unrecognizable). On the phone to review the lease, Ayana said all the terms looked good, and she looked forward to moving in. “But there’s one typo,” she said.
I thanked her for noticing and asked for the page. “Well, it’s kind of all over,” she said, “my name’s not Nyema”.
I had written Nyema instead of Ayana throughout the lease. Hot prickles raced across the backs of my arms. I had a pile of thoughts and questions I didn’t share:
Welcome to how my brain works! When writing the lease, I remembered your name had three syllables, included a Y, didn’t have any double letters, and ended in A. It’s typical that I’ll remember specific details of something without remembering the thing itself. I’m actually kind of amused at what I came up with, live a clever anagram.
I don’t believe I have ever met an Ayana in person. I know of one Nyema in the greater Seattle area. My life has been racially segregated so successfully that I can smoothly navigate Kristens, Kirstens, and Christines (distinguishing their faces, remembering their names), but I have little experience or skill with Cherises, Shanices, and Latrices (mixing up who’s who by face and name). This is excellent evidence of how I’ve been racialized in racist culture.
A Black woman gets my name wrong all the time at the food bank and I make nothing of it. But when I as a white woman get a Black woman’s name wrong, I’m determined to respond based on to who holds power in that moment—who needs to know they matter. So I’m going make a lot of it, but not in a way that further impacts you.
I didn’t say any of this. I didn’t yet have a relationship with Ayana. I didn’t want to make assumptions about her experiences as a Black woman or her history with white women—although my head, obviously, was crowded with likely possibilities. I did, however, want to unequivocally take responsibility for my mistake. So here’s what did happen:
I noted the urge to collapse into guilt or shame—how it is I, an anti-racism educator, could make such a mistake? Instead, I ignored all that to say, “Oh shit, that’s definitely all on me! I am so sorry.”
“It’s not a problem,” Ayana said, her tone soft.
I scrolled through the document. “Damn, look at that, I was so consistent!”. I saw ‘Nyema’ written at least ten times. “Well, how’s that for instilling confidence in your new landlady on day one.”
She giggled. “Really. It’s all good.” She actually sounded like she was okay with it. She also could have been making me feel better, to stop a potentially harmful situation from going any further. Or she could have been nicely shutting down the conversation out of frustration or fatigue. Or maybe she just didn’t want to step into tender racialized terrain with a white women she barely knew.
I didn’t want that, either. I took responsibility, apologized, took her at her word, learned something, and moved on. I processed this moment with friends, colleagues, the people who hold me accountable; I let go of my urge to pepper her with questions: how did that land for you? was it offensive? how did my role as landlady effect the moment? what’s your take on this moment and the way Yvette always gets my name wrong?
Perhaps this could have been a conversation between us, eventually. Ayana moved out abruptly when her contract ended early. We went out to dinner the night before she left, enjoyed a friendly conversation about families and work, and went our separate ways. We shared a goodbye hug and appreciations. That felt just right.
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