smiles from strangers are reserved for white, pretty, non-fat, and/or cis-passing people.

[belenen]

icon: "bodylove -- me (belly goddess)" (my bare belly and breasts covered in colorful washable marker drawings with spirals on my breasts and a butterfly over my belly button)"I keep thinking about the ways that stranger kindness and friendliness is reserved for those who are

Comments

[rosegardenfae]

How great that you smile at those children, I love you for that.

[bichoose]

Sadly in this modern life now, is full of what you have wrote...that old poem with the opening line of.." What is life but full of care we have no time to stand and stare " remains locked in the dusty old pages of time.
Sadly also these instances can remain locked away in the mind..I work on the post and two small bits stick in my mind always, one a lady came out of a company front door and said please move your van i am an important person. Lady two..please do not knock on my door on a Saturday morning my husband is a doctor and a very important person.Both these small bits of time happened some 20/30 years ago.
Take care...

[hana_broom]

It is interesting how people react to a shaved head... I shaved mine about ten years ago and people would avert their gaze... which is totally fucked up. Mind you, I was very unwell at the time, so maybe I looked threatening, I dunno! Yesterday I saw a girl with shaved peroxide blonde hair that had black polka dots all over it - it looked phenomenal :) I really wanted to ask how she did it!

[browncouch]

I think about this working at a library. It's a space where everyone should be welcome and I try to greet and smile all people equally. I also work at a school and try to make the children feel seen, learn their names and say hello. In that setting, where kids sometimes break rules and drive me up the wall, I also try to be aware of who I am remprimanding and in what way, because we are socialized to treat people differently based on gender and race. It's sad.

I've heard from other people that short or queer haircuts have brought compliments from black women and negative treatment from white women.

[brittdreams]

I've never thought to put it in a list the way you did but yes, as a Black woman it is definitely true that people look the other way, are unfriendly, etc. in interactions in public. I've found it worse in areas with a relatively low Black population. I really want to believe that older white people see my niblings as people but, now I'm going to pay even more attention to see if they smile at them.