Reverse Racism

 I've been silent while I've been mentally processing the fact that I was denied medical care because little Dr. Bitch thinks I'm a hysterical woman. The one doctor at the clinic I dislike. I've spoken now with the clinic director and wheels are turning, just slowly at a sloths pace.

Recently I flew to the States to get my Covid vaccination since Costa Rica hasn't been able to get enough vaccines to protect their citizens much less people in various stages of residency. Plus I needed the Johnson and Johnson per my lung doctor. I had a hard time in Maryland finding the vaccine. D.C. was a wash, they didn't have it either. Plenty of the other two. Turns out I finally found it in Virginia and drove several hours to get vaccinated.

The trip was a shit show. Not seeing my kids. That was wonderful. But traveling without the ability to walk well was awful. But I'm not going to rehash the lack of wheelchairs even when you make your reservations months before. Let's just say I'm filing an ADA accommodation complaint against a pile of places.

I got my vaccine a day before I supposed to leave. Not optimal because I was wanting to get it early on during the trip in case I had a reaction. The airline cancelled my original flights and I flew out a day later. My own side effect is exhaustion. The day I flew was the worst day. I slept doing a five hour layover in a hard ass wheelchair. I slept during a four hour flight from Charlotte back to Liberia. I came home and took an hour long nap and went to bed early to sleep a full night.

However I've started to think about something that went down on my last flight. I wonder about it now.

You have to understand I'm an awkward introvert in real life. Whenever I fly alone I usually tell a silly self deprecating joke about my snoring. It goes something like this. 

~ I warn my seat mates I may nap because I'm older than dirt.

~ I warn them I snore with an unGodly volume and timbre. 

~ I then tell them they have my express permission to tickle my toes, poke me hard, slap my hand, or take whatever action they feel is reasonable to wake me up because I am snoring.

I say this in a laughing humorous manner and we all laugh. It breaks the ice and while there's likely not to be long conversations with these strangers usually it leads to short friendly conversations. I did this on all the flights I took this trip with a variety of people, a Chinese guy, a black couple, a Hispanic guy, and assorted others. They all laughed, everyone but the last couple that sat near me.

Not everyone appreciates this. I did have a nearby 'Karen' - a woman of a certain age and awful behavior towards the flight crew that hrrumped when I gave my little speech to the Chinese guy. Then she screamed for the stewardess because she had an aisle seat and wanted a window. 

I will give the gate crew props too, every single time I wobbled up they put me in a Business class seat. Once I rode in First Class for the first and likely last time ever.

That last flight. Seated in Business near the window. No other seat mates, no one to give the snoring spiel to. I could hear behind me in Coach a huge pile of folks arguing with the flight crew over seating assignments. I was asked if I minded sharing and I said absolutely I did not mind sharing. An African American couple was seating on my row. I smiled, introduced myself, greeted them and gave them the snoring speech.

Nothing. Crickets. They stared at me like I was mad. The woman turned her back to me, spending the entire flight sitting almost sideways. I shrugged and went to sleep for the majority of the flight. I feel it's likely I snored, but hey they were warned.

I woke up over Lake Managua in Nicaragua, which means we're mere minutes, maybe ten or twenty, from the Liberia Airport. Normally this is where I point out San Juan del Sur, the wind farm on the edge of the Volcano park, the bullfighting ring and assorted other sites. But not this time. I was getting the back still.

Still puzzling over this. Perhaps I came across as crazy, and I was pretty crazed with vaccine side effects involving exhaustion. But a big part of me has to wonder if it was because I'm mostly white.  If so that's doubly tragic. I was raised in South Louisiana, a part of the country with a huge population of blacks. I've raised my kids to be pretty accepting of everyone. I'm old enough to remember the troubles the country endured during the Civil Rights era. Until Obama I'd foolishly thought that the U.S. was largely over racism. Foolish liberal me.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and fix racism, racial injustice and all the zillion small ways people of color are hurt. But I'm just one old woman who is too exhausted to fight on the front lines any longer.