Living in a world where speciesism “empowers” human animals to eat nonhuman animals and where human animals dehumanize each other based on skin color is exhausting. It is even more draining to deal with people who claim to love one species while failing to love the other.
Place: Quantum Leap – Vegetarian Restaurant in NYC
Day & Time: Saturday 1:30pm
My favorite part of working Saturdays is going to brunch in the Village after work. There are numerous vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the neighborhood and Quantum Leap is my absolute favorite for brunch.
Escaping the cold winter of New York City at a veg spot, sipping on hot coffee with soy milk and eating scrambled tofu while reading thought provoking text is perfection after a morning of teaching.
On this particular Saturday the small restaurant was not busy and the coffee was extra delicious. I was reading a National Geographic article about the ivory “trade”; very disturbing material and perhaps not ideal to read while eating. I moved on to read another article when a young woman was seated at the table next to me.
I was sitting at a small rectangular table for two with enough room for one person on each side. Her table was identical.
My back was facing the wall of the restaurant and her face was facing the wall. She was sitting at her table in the position where the person eating with me would’ve sat.
She sat down at her table and placed her backpack across from me, on the chair the person eating with me would’ve sat.
I found this bizzare considering how much space she had: under her table on the floor and on the empty seat across from her. Yet, she chose to place her backpack across from me. Mind you she acted like I was completely invisible sitting across from her bag. Never received any type of acknowledgement or “is it okay if I place my bag here?”
She asked the waiter many questions and in the process revealed she’s a vegetarian. I looked at her and saw she was wearing a sweater with the image of a cat and a slogan telling people to “save the animals”.
Ugh! Oh! She’s that type of vegetarian.
I have two things I wish I could’ve told this person:
First of all, call me whatever you want, but don’t go around wearing a “save the animals” sweater while eating eggs and drinking milk.
Second of all, take off your “save the animals” sweater and put it back on after you recognize your white privilege and the ways it’s manifested and projected in your actions towards other sentient beings: humans of color.
I was so annoyed! I couldn’t digest properly.
I left Quantum Leap feeling angry, annoyed, and frustrated.
Fast forward two hours later that same day.
I was waiting in the lobby of a local graduate school. There were around 10 people hoping to attend a forum in a room that was at capacity. As we waited for the security guards to check the room, a friend called me.
I walked behind the group and answered the phone. “Hello. How are you?”
A white woman turned around, held up her hand horizontally, and then moved it up and down signaling for me to keep it down or shut up. At the same time, there were many white men laughing, talking, and having a great time with each other. They were a few feet away from us, but were also being “loud” by this woman’s standards.
Another act of white entitlement only a few hours after the one at the vegetarian restaurant made me burst. I loudly and sarcastically started telling a person next to me, “Oh! Careful! Let’s not be too loud! Let’s all just stop talking.”
After a few outbursts of me saying this while looking at the woman who made the hand gesture, she eventually turned around and said, “you need to keep it down.”
I looked at her, moved up closer to face her and said, “The problem is white people feel they can tell everyone to shut up.”
Shock. Now, she needed a comeback. “What?! You want to make it a racist thing?”
“Of course it’s a racist “thing”! Look at those men talking, look at all the people talking. And I am the only one you told to shut up.”
Her comeback, “You were on the phone. They are talking to another person.”
Riiighttt.
“Uh huh. I’ll let you think that’s what it was.”
In the end, I felt so relieved to have called her out. Will this change her life? No. But I can guarantee one thing, she will never “signal” to another person of color to “keep it down”. And if she does, maybe she will speak to the person, acknowledge their humanity, and say please.
Tags: entitled white people, micro aggressions, new york city, nyc, Quantum leap, racism, speciesism, the village, vegan brunch, vegetarian brunch, white privilege, white vegetarians
