The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

My memory comes from when my mother was at Kroger's and witnessed these white people put their money in the soda machine and they lost their money. The white people went inside to tell the cashier  that they lost their money in the machine and they went right on and gave them their money back. When it was my mother's turn to get her money back, the cashier halted and hesitated as if my mother was lying about loosing her money like she was trying to still some money back from them that did not belong to her. She finally got her money back and stated to them that when white people steal it's called embezzlement and when black people steal it's called stealing in which it means the same thing, but embezzlement is a prettier name.

The specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity because the cashier gave my mother a problem with giving her money back, but it was not a problem with giving the white people their money back. My mother diminish equity because she did not have to make that statement towards the cashier even though she did her wrong first. I like the old saying that says two wrongs do not make it right. The feelings that this incident brought up to me was that the cashier treated the white people as though they were more important than my mother. Also, I felt as though the cashier believed the white people, but did not believe my mother because she was black and people always assuming that black people are known to lie and white people are truthful. My mother should have ignored them, prayed for them, turned the other cheek, and walked away in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity or the cashier could have just told my mother that I am going to give your money back and now I will go put a sign on the machine that said out of order so that this would not be a problem anymore.