I was shopping for Christmas gifts with my mom at Exotic Fragrances in Harlem. Every year, our building sends out a list of workers, front desk guys, porters, handymans, ect., and last Christmas, all of our money went towards my dog’s vet bills (RIP DEX) so this year, my mom really wanted to get everyone working in our apartment a gift.
If you have never stepped foot into Exotic Fragrances, which is a corner store stapled at the bottom hill of the 103rd street, imagine a small store, packed with people basically shoulder-to-shoulder, and an overwhelming smell of essential oils, diffusers, and what most people go to buy: perfume.
The store operates on a ticket system. You pull a number and wait for it to be called. I pulled 81. We were on number 30. As we are waiting for our number to be called, two young women come in. There is an express line in which a customer can only order, no smelling, only order. So these two women take the opportunity and come up to where my mom and I are standing. I told my mom, who sits in a large, mobilized wheelchair, to come closer to the counter, so when it is our turn, we will already be by a counter for a worker to come to us. In a packed store, I figured it was more easy for a worker to come to us, rather than have my mom drive across the store, avoiding a Moses-like splitting of the sea.
Now these women. I had no issue with them up until one moment. They stood directly behind my mom, pressing up against her foot rest. At this moment, I think to myself, had my mom been standing up, these women would not be so much in her space. But, I let it go. The store is packed and everyone is squeezed inside; maybe the fumes got to me, or the overwhelming noise of the store itself, combined with my mom’s presence, I mean, this store would be too much for me even if I was on my own. But having my mom next to me, the only wheelchair user in the store, I was extra sensitive to how everyone around me behaves towards my mom.
So these two women, who were very close to my mom’s footrest, made me nervous. Had my mom been standing up, would they feel so comfortable being right up on her? Or was the footrest, a metal board attached to a motorized chair, a signal to these two women that they can stand around her as if she was not there, as if they were just standing close to a wheelchair without a person sitting in.
When number 81 is called, I motion to the employee to come to us instead of us going to him across the store. At first he tells me no, without realizing that the person he is assisting is in a chair, and once he realizes, he apologetically comes over to us. At this point, the two women, who were directly behind my mom, now needed to move over. I asked the woman closest to me, “Can you scooch over?”
This is a chaotic scene: the workers are confusing us, telling the women to move over to the left, squeezing me into a corner. I am telling the women to move over, so that I am not in the corner. So one of the women, the fake blonde, says aloud, “How about we just checkout?”
Then here comes the moment. The moment I haven’t stopped replaying in my head. The fake blonde turns to my mom and says “sorry” and then turns to me and says “sorry.”
When neither my mom nor I acknowledge her apology, she says quickly, “Actually I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry.” She tells her friend, “I say sorry and she just gives me this dead look.” Maybe referring to me or my mom, I don’t know.
Now the reason this moment keeps looping in my mind is not being I feel that I was being rude. You can debate that with your mama. Could the encounter have ended in a more polite way had I said,
“Oh, no worries!” “You’re good!” “No problem!”
Maybe. But I wasn’t feeling particularly polite towards this fake blonde.
Here is the thing: Able-bodied people too often have a hero-complex when it comes to disabled people. This comes from a lack of understanding of disability in America. Able-bodied people, too often, feel like disabled people are an inconvenience and therefore, any sort of “help” that they give to a disabled person means that they, able-bodied people, should be rewarded.
This was not a case of should I have responded to this woman’s “apology,” but rather, why did this woman, who expected an applause after recommending that she’d checkout (which is a natural next step in the process of a general purchase in a store), feel so offended that we did not respond to her apology?
First of all, her apology was a signifier that she had felt that she was in the way. And she was. It was right for her to apologize. I’d give her that. Now where she went wrong was taking back her apology and declaring this brave act in the store.
This is a perfect example of what I would categorize as a micro-aggression (Or perhaps the public declaration of her exempted apology can be considered a MACRO-aggression?) towards a disabled individual. When my mother and I refused to say anything to this woman’s sorry apology, we were practicing my mother’s right to refuse. This right to refuse is something that almost all able-bodied people practice everyday. How many times have you seen an able-bodied person give up a seat for an elderly person or a pregnant woman? In all my years of living in NYC, I see this very rarely.
Everywhere in America, maybe besides D.C., NYC, NJ, and some parts of California, is functionally and systemically anti-disability. Everyday, since the beginning of it all, able-bodied people, either consciously or not, participate in the act of refusing. Resistance is refusal and without mass social and political movements that focused on resistance and refusal, the Americans with Disabilities Act would not be formation as it is today. Refusal is a crucial part of being a free citizen.
So when my mother decided to refuse this woman’s apology, she was exercising her right to do that. But this fake blonde viewed her refusal as disrespect because she does not acknowledge refusal as a right that disabled individuals can have. Instead, in this woman’s fake, blonde world, an “ideal” disabled person should have responded graciously, as if woman donated both her kidneys to my mother.
The public declaration of her backed out apology was the cherry top. She had to announce to the entire store that she was not sorry for being in the way. You know what, I respect that too. I respect that she can out herself like that because, it was revealing to me how many able-bodied people actually think:
They are not sorry. In fact, they never were sorry.
So why should we accept their apologies if they never really meant it?
I do not want to end this post by giving an impression that all you able-bodied people suck and are terrible. Instead, please educate yourself on ADA, which is one of the most important laws passed in America, and be an advocate for disabled people without expecting an applause or even a “thank you.”
warm socks cold feet 