by Amber Ruffin
Answer: No. Because it’s a very big thing for us and a very little thing for you.
Question 2: When you talk to us about this stuff, do we get to see exactly where you fall on the racism spectrum?
Answer: Yes, and that shit cannot be unseen.
Question 3: Am I saying, “White people, don’t talk to Black people about race”?
Answer: No. I’m saying, “No one wants to relive their traumatic events with someone who may say it was all their fault.” You know?
Question 4: Am I saying, “Unless I’m at some event for this book or I know you extremely well, I, Amber Ruffin, do not want to talk to white people about racist things that have happened to me”? And would I even go so far as to say, “I don’t want to have discussions about race with white people”?
Answer: I don’t think every Black person feels that way. But—and I can’t stress this enough—I very do.
You know, once, when I was very young (younger than I am now, if that’s even possible!), I was on my way to an improv class. Literally as I arrived—my hand was on the door—I saw a very drunk man headed toward me. He was stumbling down the street and yelling at everything he saw. He saw me and gave me a scary look and called me a string of racial slurs. I quickly turned away from him and pulled the door open and jumped inside, slamming the door shut, and when I turned around I was literally face-to-face with my improv teacher. He was right there saying, “Howdy, Amber! How are you today?” I replied, “Today, sir, I am magnificent.”
I say all that to say, we are trying to ease you into some harder-to-believe stories. Like these.
Being Black at the Doctor’s Office:
Try Not to Be
“Your bad attitude can’t affect my good day!”
—Lacey Lamar
Lacey once had to get a checkup for her new job. She was going to be working closely with old folks and needed an “all clear” before she got started. So just in case she wanted to, she could open-mouth kiss all the old people.
Amber, I swear to god.
But she didn’t open-mouth kiss anyone at work.
Thank you.
She tried to, but there were no takers.
Lacey has pinched me, so I will act right. So, Lacey goes into this new building she’s never been in to see this doctor she has never seen before. Lacey wasn’t entirely sure where exactly to go, but she found the suite number and walked in. Lacey goes up to the counter and sees a woman who is less than polite. Look, everyone has good days and bad days. So what, chicken butt. So Lacey happily greeted her and gave her name and a slip of paper that had her appointment information on it.
The lady was shocked that Lacey dared to give her a slip of paper. She angrily barked:
“The office you need is next door.”
Dang! Lacey thought to herself. Why did she hit the “you” so hard? No matter. She went next door, and this office was packed. She took a number and sat down. Lacey waited for over an hour before she realized that that lady had taken one look at her and sent her to the WIC office! (WIC is the program that supplies food, child care, and health help to low-income parents. AKA food stamps.)
Lacey returned to the first office prepared to hurt everyone’s feelings. She was ready to give a full Suzanne Sugarbaker1 speech.
“Hello. You may remember me from earlier. I’m the woman you profiled. Even though I had a doctor’s appointment here, you sent me next door to the WIC office without so much as letting me say a single thing. You were wrong—we all know that now. But before I go back there for my appointment with your boss, what was it about me that made you think I came to this building to go to the WIC office?” At this point all the woman’s coworkers have gathered. They are shocked, or at least pretending to be. A few are enjoying it. “What is it about my face, hair, clothes, or demeanor that made it unnecessary to ask me why I was here? Do I look that healthy? You know what? Not to be a you, but I’d rather not take the time to listen to your reply. Can you tell the doctor his eleven-thirty is here and is late and that’s your fault?”
“Your bad attitude can’t affect my good day! But if you somehow manage to turn my good day into a bad bay, I’m taking you with me.”
—Lacey Lamar
Speaking of profiling, it’s not very often that Lacey has time to go to the doctor. But a few years ago, she felt she had to go because she was unbearably tired. Now, you might not know this, but Lacey needs only five hours of sleep a day. She’s a machine. So if she is feeling tired, something is probably wrong. Worried, she goes to the doctor. She’s had the same doctor that she has loved for years, a DOC (doctor of color), but every once in a while, she’d go to the office and end up having to see the other guy, an OWD (old white doctor).
A month and a half before she went to the doctor, she’d started taking iron supplements. She has always been a little anemic and assumed that was at least one of the problems, even though no one had told her. But her self-medicating wasn’t doing anything. So she’s at the doctor’s office, talking to DOC, and she is listing her iron supplements and explaining to him that she’s never been this exhausted. The DOC says, “Before we take any blood, let’s take a look at your history.”
As he’s looking through her history, scrolling through her file, he is reading entries made by himself and OWD. Lacey says, “The last time I was here, they did some blood work.” DOC says, “Oh! Your iron was dangerously low three months ago. I’m sure that’s the problem.” Lacey gasps. No one had told her this. No one had called her. No one had emailed her. No one had told her to eat more steak. Nothing. She lets him know and says, “You know, Black women have a lot of problems with being helped at the doctor. We’re often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. He should’ve prescribed something.” Unable to bad-mouth his partner, DOC apologizes and says, “I understand exactly what you’re saying. Several times people have come here for help, but when they got here and saw me face-to-face, they asked my race and then asked for a different doctor.” The two of them spend a little bit of time talking about all the many times they have to professionally eat shit. It’s nice. So then he goes, “We are gonna run some tests. You’re doing the right thing with your supplements. Sometimes it takes two to three months for the supplements to make a difference. Three months ago your iron was low; let’s see if it’s higher today.” As they wait, DOC continues to look through Lacey’s medical history. He’s reading off things in her history. Not like a checklist but sort of mumbling to himself like, “C-section, physical in December…” Stuff like that. As he’s reading this list he just so happens to mumble, “…kidney stones…” and Lacey goes, “Did you say kidney stones? I’ve never had kidney stones.” He looks at her and is like, “I’m afraid you did.” They look at each other and just bust out laughing. “Five years ago you had a kidney stone. Did you go to the hospital?” Lacey remembers. “Oh my god. I did.”
It was the middle of the night and she was having the worst stomach pains. Having given birth to a child before, she honestly believed that it was superstrong labor pains. Have you ever seen that show I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant? It’s the frigging best. These women find out they’re pregnant as a baby is coming out of them. There are enough of these stories to make an entire TV show. And let me tell you, it’s good television. Anyway, Lacey went to the emergency room. She fills out the forms and they ask her if she is constipated. Lacey says no. “Are you constipated?” No. “Do you have diverticulitis? If you have it and eat popcorn, this can happen.” She doesn’t have that and doesn’t like popcorn. She’s in agony. They put her on pain meds. It’s still pretty horrible. After the meds, she pees into that thing they have in the hospital bathroom that catches your pee. It’s bad but she feels a little better. The meds must’ve really started to work. She goes home. Her prescription? Poop. They prescribed her to poop. That’s it. That was their help. She never heard from them again. They must’ve gathered her pee and found out she’d passed a kidney stone, put “kidney stones” in her file, and
never told her.
How does someone pass a kidney stone and not find out until five years later? Lacey told her white coworkers about this (her mistake if you ask me, but okay). This one idiot said, “Lacey, the same thing happened to me. I had extreme pain like you. Then, to my surprise, I was told by doctors I had a kidney stone.”
Lacey: “When did you find out?”
Idiot: “The next day.”
Lacey: “I found out five years later. It is not the same.”
There are a few doctor stories, but we will just leave you with this one. When Lacey was pregnant, she had to do her own prenatal care. As it was getting closer to the birth, she went to the doctor, who said, “You should give birth any day now.” But Lacey was worried. She would try to tell doctors and nurses that she didn’t think the baby had dropped. As nice as they were, these doctors and nurses were uninterested. The doctor brushed her off, gave her the all clear, and left. She finally convinces a nurse that her concerns are valid. That the baby is damn near in her chest and giving birth would be near impossible. The nurse agrees. They get the ultrasound guy to come in. He does the ultrasound. Soon after, the doctor comes back in and says, “We are gonna have to do a C-section. Hey! If this had happened in the 1800s, you’d both be dead!” Y’all. What if Lacey hadn’t convinced someone to give her an ultrasound?
It’s Hot in Africa
Working at smaller companies is good and bad. It’s good because even if everyone is terrible, it’s still fewer terrible people than in a very large company. Also, with a smaller workforce, you can change the tide a little more easily. You don’t have to explain why something is racist forty different times to forty different frowning faces. You do it once, everyone’s there, and they decide to listen or they don’t. But sometimes joining a smaller company is not a good thing, because there is one monster of a person who works there and he has everyone right where he wants them.
Lacey worked as one of the directors at a small nursing home. It was fine and most of the people seemed normal. Bonus: most of the kitchen staff were Black, so there was someone to roll your eyes with when things got insane, and things did go insane in an unbelievable way. Things here would get so insane that Lacey would think, I gotta start writing this shit down. No one’s gonna believe me. Okay, so one white man was in charge of the completely Black kitchen staff. Let’s call him Biff.
Can I just quickly say that Amber was screaming laughing during this story. I had to turn my phone’s volume down. She laughed so hard at my pain.
It’s one of my favorites. My laughter was correct.
Okay, one day the staff complains to Lacey about the heat in the kitchen, which is odd because Lacey is not in charge of what’s happening in the kitchen. But it is clear what’s going on here; they are not being listened to by the white people who lead their department. They complained to Lacey because they thought she might listen to them. They said that the kitchen was too hot to begin with, but now it had become unbearable because the air conditioner had broken. They were scared that because of the new crazy temperatures someone was going to either faint or die. Sounds like something you gotta listen to people about, but okay. Also, this was a small retirement home but they could definitely afford to fix the air conditioner. They could afford to buy two air conditioners, throw one in the trash, and use the other one in the kitchen. So at the next meeting, Lacey brings this up. Biff thinks it’s hilarious. He waves off their concerns.
“You know how I know they’re making this up? Because they’re all from Africa. It’s not hot to them. They’re used to it being a hundred degrees. They’re from Africa. It’s a hundred degrees there. It’s hot in Africa.”
This fool said, “It’s hot in Africa.” Now, we can be sure of a few things.
We are dealing with a big old dum-dee-dum-dum.
If he’s willing to say this in front of Lacey, then when she’s not there this man certainly says some SHIT.
During this fool’s tirade, Lacey googles “Johannesburg temperature” on her phone. It was sixty-five degrees. The second he gets done talking, she shows everyone. Lacey has to school them about how the continent of Africa has a million different temperatures and to stop saying ignorant shit like this. They get an air conditioner. Lacey reports back to the kitchen staff and tells them the whole thing. They all laugh about the statement “It’s hot in Africa.” Lacey realizes she’s going to have to do this man’s job while doing her own.
Do you think this would happen with any other group of people? What if everyone was from Seattle? If the sprinkler system was on and it was constantly raining inside, would he let it go because “it’s always raining in Seattle”? Would he? Call in your replies to the Dr. Frasier Crane Show.
At every meeting, this man says something gross about his Black staff. Every single meeting, a new crazy thing. Lacey doesn’t find this surprising because if you’re dumb enough to go on a whole tirade about how Black people are impervious to heat, you can’t be that smart. Every time, Lacey explains why whatever he said was a crazy thing to say. It’s tiring.
Eventually, the nursing staff complains to Lacey that Biff was making racist comments to them. They tell her that Biff has been calling the Black nurses “hood rats.” Not just referring to them as a bunch of hood rats but addressing them like, “Yo, hood rat.” As if the word hood rat is each of their names. It goes without saying that he’s never done this in front of Lacey. Only in front of people who are Black and who work underneath him. These nurses told Lacey that they’d complained but they were never listened to. Lacey would talk to him about it.
She asks Biff if he has been calling the Black nurses hood rats. He doesn’t deny it. He even tried to defend using the term hood rat. “When I say ‘hood rat’ I mean it in a nice way. You know, hood rat. Like a hustler, a good worker.” Lacey googled the definition and read it out loud to him.
“‘Hood rat. Noun. Someone who has sex with everyone in the “hood” or neighborhood; the term is linked to the culture of the American ghettos and to hip-hop culture. A hood rat is often a poor woman who engages in sexual activity like a prostitute, but without charge and without being coerced.’”
“Well, I didn’t know that and that’s not how I mean it. I think it’s a fine thing to say.”
It’s not. So Lacey complained to Barbara, their HR person. Even though everyone had complained about this man, maybe it would be different coming from Lacey. It wasn’t. They had no choice but to go over her head.
Lacey calls the head of HR for the whole company, Kimberly. She explains to Kimberly everything that has been going on. Kimberly is shocked, you guys. She cannot believe what has happened. Kimberly tells Lacey, “We’re going to have to open an investigation.” She does.
When an investigation starts on anyone at this and at most companies, they make the accused leave the building so the staff feels safe telling the truth about them. They tell them to get their stuff and leave and they will call you when the results come. And only then will they find out if and when they’re coming back. The very next day Biff was back in the building complaining that someone on his staff called corporate on him. This was not allowed. He took a trip to everyone’s office and gave them each an earful, and tried to intimidate everyone under him. He did this to let them know to keep quiet. But it was too late.
Their executive director was told to interview the staff one by one and send the individual reports of what happened to Kimberly. Lacey watches as one by one all the Black staff get interviewed and one by one they come out looking hopeful. Everyone was thrilled to finally get all this off of their chest.
In Lacey’s meeting, she tells her executive director everything. She remembers every last time Biff said something crazy and it felt great. She can’t be sure, but it looks like the executive director is just nodding her head a lot and not writing down exactly what Lacey is saying. But Lacey is talking a mile a minute, so maybe she’s just writing down the gist. Or just the word racist really big so it takes up
the whole piece of paper.
When all of the statements are given, Lacey waits for a call from corporate. Once you file a complaint, they do an investigation and get back to you. But it has been a while and Lacey hasn’t heard anything. Then she sees him. BIFF IS BACK! How was he allowed to come back to work with all those terrible things people said about him? Lacey immediately calls Kimberly. She is shocked when she hears what Kimberly has to say:
“We never called you because no one complained.”
Lacey can’t believe it. There is no way on earth no one complained. Even if everyone else was lying to Lacey for fun, you still have Lacey’s testimony. Lacey tells her that that is impossible. Kimberly assures Lacey that sometimes people aren’t willing to go on the record to file formal complaints about people. Lacey realizes that Kimberly thinks she got scared and changed her story. Lacey assures her that no one did. There’s a long pause as Kimberly realizes what has happened.
“Lacey, can you tell me what you said in your interview?”
Kimberly is not allowed to read anyone’s reports out loud to Lacey. But she can compare the notes from Lacey’s interview to what Lacey tells her now on the phone.
Lacey tells her. She tells her all of it, and Kimberly doesn’t say a word. There’s a long, long pause and a sigh. Lacey says, “I can tell from your reaction that that’s not what’s on my statement.” Kimberly says, “Your statement is two sentences. It just says, ‘Biff said he wasn’t sure about his workers.’ And ‘It’s hot in Africa.’”
IT’S HOT IN AFRICA! Oh my god, I love this story. Lacey is livid. Their executive director did this. Kimberly tells her, “Please don’t say anything. I’ll take care of it.” Two days later Kimberly flies in. She lets everyone know she is going to conduct her own interviews. She says, “If these interviews don’t match up with what you claim the staff told you, we will have a problem.” They interview everyone again. The executive director and Biff are fired.