by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Watercooler is the section of the blog in which we share with you real-life horror stories from the frontlines of race in the workplace. This week, we have a story from Melinda:

I am a white woman who has worked with one particular white woman for the past eleven years. I have identified her as Woman A in the following story.

My office sits on the other side of the wall of Woman A. Last Thursday following an afternoon phone call received in the office, I heard Woman A say (rather loudly) to a new co-worker across the hall, “I can’t understand a word they’re saying,” A few minutes later, the phone rings again, and the new co-worker (whom I’ll refer to as Woman B) answers the phone. At this point, Woman B replies to Woman A by saying, “Why can’t they just speak English?”

At this point, I already had an idea of where this conversation might be going, and my blood began to come to a simmering point. Woman A is notorious for opening her mouth without a thought as to what is coming out of it, whether that be in appropriate time, place, subject, company or otherwise.

I missed the first few words of what Woman A said next, but the words that followed were more than I needed to hear - when she said “towel head”. I swear that my blood pressure went up so fast I