Ron: Considering social justice at my Seattle gas station

Yesterday, the Ron and Don Show had on the new social justice columnist for The Seattle Times as a guest. His name is Tyrone Beason, and I encourage you to read his stuff. I think it’s very good.

Admittedly, as a middle-aged white man, I haven’t spent that much time pondering social justice in my life, but I’m trying to do better. I’m making an effort to pay attention, and to figure out what my response should be.

RELATED: Journalism shouldn’t rely on billionaires and celebrities

Case in point, I needed to fill up my gas tank the other night. It was late, but not too late  — maybe 10:30 p.m. I pulled into the gas station (I won’t say which one for reasons which will become obvious in a moment.) I was at one set of pumps and a young black man pulled up to the other set of pumps to my right. He got out of his car and realized that the gas tank was on the wrong side away from the pump. I’ve done this exact same thing a bunch of times in my life.

Instead of moving his car, he just pulled the nozzle over the trunk, and began to fill up his car. Again, I’ve done the same thing numerous times.

Honestly, at this point, I think I started thumbing through my Instagram feed until I noticed the gas station employee marching out of the store and making a bee line to the black man I just described. He said, “If you break my nozzle, it’s going to be a $300 fine. No doubt about it. You need to move your car.”

The black man said “I think I got it, there’s plenty of slack.”

But the gas station employee wasn’t having it, he got increasingly animated until the black man put the nozzle back in the holder ending that transaction
and then began to move his car around.

I was taken aback. What’s the big deal about extending the hose across the trunk? Isn’t that why they made it that long for in the first place? Is the gas station employee a racist? Is that just a microaggression? What if I had done the same thing, I doubt there would have been the same reaction.

Should the black man have stood his ground? He clearly wasn’t doing anything wrong. Maybe he was worried that if things continued to escalate, things might turn out really badly for him.

I just stood there and observed the whole thing. I finished filling up, and went my way.

Should I have intervened? Was it my place to say something to the employee? These are grown men, is it any of my business?

I don’t have it figured out yet, but I can now imagine a life where you have to experience thousands of little annoyances like this over and over because of the color of your skin. I’m angry for every person that has to carry that extra load.

Maybe empathy is the first step to understanding social justice.

You can hear “What are we talking about here?” everyday at 4:45 p.m. on 97.3 FM.

More from Ron Upshaw