Let me be clear here. I do not normally, nor do I like to, play the race card. I try to see and understand the perceptions, perspectives, and experiences of everyone and for me, nothing is simply black or white.
That said, this opinion will stray from that.
Over a year ago there were some issues with my prescriptions at a CVS Pharmacy that I’d been unable to resolve. Without going into complex details, these issues developed into a communication conflict between the pharmacist and me.
There were no harsh words, no shouting, no cursing, etc. We simply had a communication dispute.
Nothing harsh but she obviously didn’t like my “standing my ground” so to speak. At the end of the last session we had over the phone, she asked me if I would get my prescriptions filled at another pharmacy. “Absolutely not”, I said. “I live almost directly across the street from this pharmacy and I see no reason to go to another”. “And why should I?”
She very calmly said, “If you come into this Pharmacy again I will call the police”. And she refused to fill a prescription that was waiting to be filled.
She is white, I am black.
I was stunned and my first thought was to call the media. I had decided to walk into the store with the media and if/when she called the police, have the media there to catch it all.
I can be dramatic at times. Understand that I’ve been going to this pharmacy for the last 20 years.
But my sanity returned and instead, I called CVS customer service who put me on the phone with the District Director. After explaining the situation to him, he said, “CVS is not in the business of calling the police on our customers. No one will call the police if you go into the store” and he would call the store to tell them to fill out my script.
I assumed everything was taken care of.
A few weeks later I had an allergy attack, and called my doctor (it was a Friday evening), who called in a prescription. The next day, Saturday, I called to see if my script was ready. This pharmacist had refused again to fill my prescription.
Again, I called the District Manager. He didn’t believe she refused to fill the script after telling her to fill my scripts. He wanted to blame it on my insurance or something else but when he called, he found that it was none of those things, it was the pharmacist.
I wrote a letter to the corporation to document and explain everything and told them that this pharmacist was playing with danger. She was playing around with the medicine I needed. Medicine that I couldn’t get until I called the manager.
I also wanted to know her reason for asking me to go to another pharmacy and threatening to call the police if I went into this particular pharmacy.
I knew she couldn’t give a reason because there was none.
But when you tell someone not to enter your store or you will call the police, there should be a reason and that reason tends to be because you feel threatened. When someone is out of control, verbally, or physically. When someone is loud, cursing, and/or acting in a threatening manner.
None of this took place.
The only thing I did was assert myself during our communication process. And she obviously could not handle this from me, a black woman.
Corporate responded that they would see that it did not happen again and if so to inform them.
After this incident, CVS started to send out emails with a questionnaire on how well your experience was (that was not sent before).
I was hoping that their telephone conversations were taped so our conversation could be replayed since it was her word against mine. But they don’t tape conversations. They should.
OK let’s analyze this. In other words, let’s take it apart.
This pharmacist obviously could not handle an assertive customer and thought that asking me to go to another pharmacist would make me go away.
When that did not work, she threatened to call the police in an attempt to intimidate me, this old, black lady. What she did not count on was that I am not easily intimidated by anyone if I’ve done nothing wrong. And that I would demand to know her reasons for what she was asking.
I wonder if she has done this before with any others who just went quietly to another pharmacy.
Fast forward to today and another incident.
A few days ago, I received a call from one of my neighbors to tell me that another neighbor had fallen on my car and there was a dent in it.
After I inspected the car and saw a huge dent on the hood of my car, I left a note on her (whom I’ll call “Mary”, not her real name) door saying, “You dented my car, call me at (phone number) JJ”.
Later that day while frying fish for dinner there was a loud knock on my door. I opened it to a policeman who said they received a call from “Mary” indicating that I claimed she dented my car door and she was afraid of me and wanted the police to talk to me on her behalf.
I laughed out loud at how ridiculous this was.
I invited him in because I didn’t have time to stand in the door discussing this bull shit. I had fish to turn over.
He came in and said he had to write a report on me.
“Report me for what, leaving a note on her door?” He seemed confused and said she admitted falling on my car but she denied denting it.
“There was a witness”, I replied.
He asked, “What did you want to talk to her about?”
I replied with a question, “If someone dented your car and you knew who it was wouldn’t you want to talk to them?” He started to say yes but remembered he was a cop there to report me on something so he instead hung his head and said meekly, “Maybe”.
I wanted to discuss the dent that she left on my car and to see what she was going to do about it, I answered.
I have insurance but I also have a deductible that will have to come out of my pocket. Was she going to take care of it? I continued.
As he was leaving, I told him to tell her that since she refused to talk to me and brought the cops into it, then I would take her to court.
The next day I called the police department to see if there was a report written on me but there was none. So, I wanted to know “What did she say to send the police out”,
I was told that that information was private and could not be divulged. However, I could contact the Freedom of Information Act to access the information. I contacted the FIA to access the info.
Below is how her call to the police was reported.
“Mary” said, “She fell due to the ground being uneven and was assisted up by someone and that she did have a walker with her.”
When “Mary” returned to her apartment the resident of the car— had left a note on “Mary’s” door for “Mary” to call her and is saying “Mary’s” walker dented her car when she fell.”
“Mary,” said the female is very ‘high spirited’ and “Mary” is too scared to call or confront the resident to see what she is claiming happened or wanting and wants police to do it. …..”
End of report
That next day I received a call from “Mary’s” minister. He explained that he was calling on “Mary’s” behalf. He said “Mary” had admitted to falling on my car. She said she looked at the place where she had fallen and saw a dent but she didn’t do it.
LOL.
When I told him that I was really angry that she had sent the police to my apartment, he said, Well she has never been in this kind of situation before and didn’t know what to do.”
Yeah, right.
OK let’s analyze this. In other words, let’s take it apart.
“Mary” gets this innocuous note on her door to call me.
She calls the police reporting that she’s scared to call me. (“Mary” and I have been in this apartment building for around 14 years.)
The building only has 16 units and everyone knows everyone else.
I gave”Mary” a sewing machine (she’s a Mennonite) and a lot of sewing paraphernalia for her church a while back.
She has been in my apartment for a social function.
She called me via telephone to ask me if she could store some food in the freezer that her church had given her.
Suddenly she feels threatened enough to call the police because I put a note on her door regarding damaging my car!!!
Give me a f……..g break!
OK. I don’t know what “Mary” was thinking but I think she was thinking that once this cop saw this sweet, little old, white lady who is scared of this aggressive, black woman, would come to my apartment and that I would be intimidated by him and that would be the end of it.
The police went back to “Mary’s” and told her that I said I had a witness re: the dent, and if she didn’t want to talk to me I planned to go to court.
This is not working out the way Mary planned.
Now she calls her minister.
Why couldn’t Mary have called her minister first since “She has never been in this kind of situation before and didn’t know what to do”?
At least she told her minister a part truth. She fell on the car and although she didn’t think she dented it, when she got off the car she saw a dent.
LOL, this is too funny.
We’ve all, if we watch the news at all, seen the white ladies calling the police on blacks because they are scared of nothing incidents.
I know falling is not something she could help and I’m sorry she had to go through it all physically and mentally.
However, I too am experiencing mental and financial inconveniences and expenses. I had to take the car for inspections, take it for estimates, put it in the body shop for 10 days, and rent a car.
Yet “Mary” is “too scared” to even say “I’m sorry for your inconvenience”.
Or perhaps “Mary” just doesn’t give a damn.
As I said at the beginning of this article, I don’t normally nor do I like to play the race card because not everything is black and white.
But the two incidences above have black and white colored all over them. (no pun intended).
Anyway, this is Jazzy’s opinion.