If you’re reading this and you came here on your own, please don’t tell me you read this post. Thank you.

Well, this might be one of my biggest fumbles yet.

I made a pretty racist remark to my coworker, and he really didn’t like it.

Much-needed context

I work at Newcomb Hall, the main student center, at the University of Virginia. I’ve pulled up to the closing shift at 9:45pm and have been told we have a setup to quickly flip in the Ballroom and another room. The setup in the Ballroom required a portable stage and 400 chairs; the setup in the other room required 128 chairs. This is a much higher than usual amount of work, so there were more shifts available for people to help out; but unfortunately, no one signed up for them, so it’s just me and another co-worker.

The problem is that there was another event, a pageant, in the Ballroom actively happening. This event was reserved until 10pm; the event itself was supposed to end at 9 to allow event organizers to clean up and be done by 10. On top of that there was a ton of equipment us staff would have to remove before we could start setting up for tomorrow’s event. It was 10:10pm and they were still blasting music in there, so we couldn’t start on the Ballroom. Instead, me and my co-worker started working on the other room.

When we got there, there were other people from the event in the room, and we asked them to leave so we could set up. What kind of frustrated me was the fact that they were even hanging out in there in the first place, since they didn’t have the room reserved, but technically it’s allowed; just an annoyance that I have to ask them to leave.

So I’m here at Newcomb, working with a mildly negative attitude today because of all the stuff I have to deal with, and once it’s just me and my co-worker working on chairs, I say something to him.

What I said

“This is going to sound really racist, but…

You know, first [another group from two months ago] causing me problems, now this…

I’ve noticed that most of the groups that have been causing me trouble on the job at work, demographically, are majority Black”. That’s close to what I said, I think.

“That’s a really bad opinion to have… as [me being] a student manager…” Is only one part of what he said, I think.

I’m lucky I didn’t immediately get yelled at.

It’s safe to say that he did not take that well at all. I immediately recognized that and I apologized, maybe another two times throughout the rest of my shift. Before we left to go home I told him I had some thinking to do, and he said that I’d better.

Writing this is what I mean by that… I think it’s important I write about this.

Another person’s perspective

After we finished up that room the event in the Ballroom still wasn’t done so we had some downtime. I went to go talk to another one of my coworkers who was off-shift, but still here, and explained what I did.

She told me that my complaint was kind of understandable; in regard to events going way over their expected time, she said that “we do that too”, it’s unfortunate. In response, I stressed that I really didn’t want to tie that to ethnicity… but it’s just an observation I’ve made.

My statement may have been terrible and came off as racist, but I knew that from the start. Beforehand I knew it was bad, but I really wanted to get it out there. I wanted a second opinion, another perspective and someone to tell me I’m wrong.

I shouldn’t have tried that with my first co-worker for a multitude of reasons - reasons that I really can’t post here because otherwise someone would be able to guess who he is… but the biggest being that he’s African-American himself!

But with my second-coworker I think she assumed or understood that I was acting in good faith and was just frustrated. With my first-coworker I probably immediately crossed the line of no-return… which is fair. It just sucks that I no longer have an opportunity to explain myself, but I should have known better than to cross that line in the first place with him.

Holding an opinion vs. voicing an opinion

While closing up the building we found some leftover supplies from the event: a soda box, a box of event materials they forgot to take away, and some trash. These are policy violations, so I do have to report them. Somehow we got back to the topic of that remark I made two hours ago:

“No, no, no, I’m not talking about that. I’m never going to voice that opinion ever again. I’m just talking about objective problems that I should report-“

“You shouldn’t even hold those opinions in the first place.”

“I- *sigh* Sure.”

This is something I don’t necessarily agree with.

I believe everyone has opinions that will inevitably clash with people of different backgrounds. But we can still coexist and live in a peaceful society, right?

What’s risky is voicing and acting on controversial opinions.

If you present your opinion as fact and say that you firmly believe it is true, of course people are going to kill you. But if you present your opinion with skepticism, people should see that as an attempt to correct something that person thinks is wrong. Saying that people shouldn’t hold that opinion ever doesn’t really give them a chance to understand if they are willing to try.

The idea of holding an opinion that is seen as near-universally wrong isn’t necessarily that person’s fault. They could have inherited that from their parents, from school, somewhere on the Internet - anything with influence.

If you really want to correct someone’s beliefs, I think the best way is through education and open dialogue. A lot of controversial opinions people hold are just due to them… not knowing better.

For the longest time I held negative opinions about the LGBTQ topic. I knew it wasn’t popular. But I made friends with queer people despite those opinions, learned more about the topic, had some discussions, and my opinions changed.

Tonight, I did a very bad job at what I’ve described here, and I don’t think the person on the receiving side caught that. And I don’t expect them to; they have no obligation to.

But I firmly believe it’s okay to hold controversial opinions, if you’re open to new information and careful with how you pose them.

I’m upset

Overall I think I’ve definitely failed… as a decent person today. While I do stand by what I’ve written here, I should have been much more considerate about what I say to my coworkers, my friends, anyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone, physically or emotionally, but unfortunately I did today. And for that, I’m upset with myself.