I walked into one of my favorite cafés, the one where I do my best thinking. Here, I mentally probe a social or economic failure I see and try to approach it from an out-of-the-box approach to educate and to find solutions. Often, I am learning as I am writing, and I hope I impart knowledge to my readers with the same energy. I try to analyze policies that can somehow stitch the fabric of our torn social structure. That day, my mind was still buzzing from my latest deep dive into the mess we call progress. Solutions. I was trying to write solutions.
My laptop was out on the table, and the charger was plugged in. I am a bit of a germaphobe, so I wiped the table down with napkins. The last person left their mess behind, assuming someone else would clean up after them. It was a small thing, but small things add up.
I settled in, waiting for the usual ritual. Coffee, a small bite. A snack. A nod from the waitress. Something to acknowledge my presence. But nothing. The lone server—a young Brazilian woman—moved around me like I wasn’t there. Not once. Not twice. Every table around me got service. The couple who had just walked in got their orders before I could even save my first draft.
I watched her. She saw me. I know she did. But her eyes slid right past me, over me, through me.
That old, familiar question crept in.
Was this an accident? A busy mind? Or was it something deeper?
I forced myself to wait. To watch. Maybe she just… forgot? But forgetting is a funny thing. It has a pattern. A direction. And when forgetting consistently moves in the same direction toward the same kinds of people, it isn’t forgetting anymore. It’s something else.
Feeling my own sensations getting agitated, I had to ask.
She walked past me again, and this time, I didn’t let her.
I caught her eye and beckoned her over. “Why haven’t you come to my table?”
A pause. Then, “I don’t know.”
No excuse. No apology. No scrambling to cover the mistake. Just… nothing.
I pressed. “You looked at me, made eye contact, then proceeded to serve four tables after I sat down. Why?”
Another pause. Another “I don’t know.”
But I knew.
Implicit bias is a shadow. It’s not conscious, not always deliberate. But it is felt. It shapes behavior. It shapes interactions. It decides who matters and who doesn’t in the smallest, subtlest ways. And in that café, at that moment, it decided that I wasn’t there.
What does it do to a person to be erased like that?
Psychologists call it “racial microinvalidation”—a subtle form of bias that dismisses a person’s experiences and makes them feel invisible, unworthy, and less than others. Studies show that these small, everyday cuts have the same psychological effect as more overt discrimination. Increased stress, heightened vigilance, and emotional exhaustion. It’s called racial weathering, and it eats away at the mind, body, and soul.
But here’s the twist: she’s Brazilian. And in America? In Europe? She’d be what white-believing people would consider Black.
That’s the real tragedy. Implicit bias works even against those who are its own victims. Internalized racism, colorism, classism—call it what you want, but it thrives on people like her believing that some deserve priority while others do not.
I didn’t yell. Didn’t make a scene. I just let her know that I saw it. She should see it, too.
Because here’s the thing: she’s young. She is too young to waste her life weighed down by biases she probably doesn’t even realize she’s carrying. Too young to walk through life blindfolded to the ways she herself might be dismissed, ignored, erased.
So I will go back to that café. Not to prove a point. Not to test her. But because people can unlearn rubbish they’ve been taught.
Bias isn’t innate. It’s absorbed, passed down, and reinforced by a world that thrives on division. But it can be undone. It has to be.
Because I refuse to live in a world where people like me—people like her—are made invisible.
And I will not let her pretend not to see me again.
Please note: To those who dismiss my experience as paranoia or an overreaction—especially white-believing people who have never had to navigate the world with the burden of racial bias—I say this: You do not get to dictate how I feel, nor do I need your permission. You do not get to gaslight me into questioning what I saw, what I felt, or what I know to be true. The privilege of moving through life without having to consider whether your race influenced how you are treated is exactly why you don’t see it when it happens to others. I don’t need your permission to name what I experienced. I never asked for it.
Sources:
Sue, Derald Wing. (2010). “Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation.” Wiley.
Williams, David R., et al. (2019). “Racial disparities in health: Patterns, causes, and consequences.” Behavioral Science & Policy.
Jones, Camara Phyllis. (2000). “Levels of Racism: A Theoretic Framework and a Gardener’s Tale.” American Journal of Public Health.
Tatum, Beverly Daniel. (1997). “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” Basic Books.
