My Life in the Sunshine by Nabil Ayers

Author:Nabil Ayers [Ayers, Nabil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

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Seattle was a very white city, and I sometimes wondered how people viewed me as a non-white business owner. The same way I feared the reactions of my high school dates’ parents when I arrived at their door, I also feared a situation in which my race might place me at a disadvantage. Solicitors always looked shocked to meet me when they asked to see the owner, but Jason got the same reaction—we were both young and wore band T-shirts.

When a white, middle-aged male label representative asked me, “Hey, Nabil, where are all the Black women in Seattle?” I let it roll over me. He asked so innocently and honestly. As if I were simply expected to know—as if they actually existed and I knew their secret location. Rather than getting angry about his perception of who I was, I told him honestly that he needed to move to a different city. I had lived in mostly white neighborhoods in Seattle, but I was always surprised when I attended large public events and didn’t see more non-white people. Seattle Supersonics basketball games and Seattle Mariners baseball games felt far more white than the New York Yankees games I’d attended with my uncle as a child. The many concerts I saw were attended by predominately white audiences—even when the performers weren’t white.

The buttoned-up Seattle mayor who was up for reelection once entered the store with an entourage that included a photographer. After a brief conversation in which the white mayor made earnest, concerned faces while asking what challenges we faced as a Seattle business, a pushy assistant placed me—not Jason—at his side for a series of photos. The mayor’s office soon called, asking permission to use our photo in his campaign flyer, which I assumed was going to the white, liberal neighborhoods surrounding our store. We joked that his campaign slogan would read “Some of my best friends are half-Black.”

Late one night, I received a call from our alarm company telling me that someone had broken into the store. I arrived to find our door smashed in and our cash register in pieces on the hard tile floor. The voice inside my head dictated a different protocol than Jason’s would have: Wait outside, identify yourself, and greet the police when they arrive. Even in safe, liberal Seattle, I didn’t want to be the non-white person caught crouching over the pieces of a cash register when the police arrived. That’s how you get shot.

One day, a white Sonic Boom employee got into an altercation with a non-white customer. The noise caused me to run down from the office. The customer claimed he’d received a discount at the store before, but that it wasn’t offered today, and the clerk was therefore racist. I knew that our discount policy was fairly indiscriminate and therefore wildly inconsistent. I also knew that our employee wasn’t racist. I asked the customer to step outside.

In that moment, I thought back to Alan’s behavior in

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