Unexpected

Today there was an incident where I was accused of being racist, and it made me feel good rather than bad. Let me explain:


I think I'd like to be a department head or maybe even a library director someday. Knowing this, I keep an eye out for things that happen at work that would tell me if it am suited for the work and would help make me more qualified. So today was sort of a weird experience.


A woman was having trouble with a website in one of our PCs. At first she was cursing and mumbling to herself but it started to get louder and I thought it might bother other patrons. Instead of starting us off on bad foot by having my first interaction with her be a complaint, I went over near her and said "Do you need some help with the computer?" to which she responded something like "No! I need you to get out of my space and I need your mother f***king computer to work! So you can just go back and get away from me." So I did. Soon after that I went to help a white woman sitting a few chairs down whose web browser had frozen. That was a normal nice patron interaction where no one was mad at anyone and we fixed the problem and I left again. 


After a bit the first woman started cursing again so this time I went up and said "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you can't use language like that in here. I know you're frustrated but it violates our code of conduct. If it happens again I will have to ask you to leave the library." While I was saying this she was simultaneously talking to me about how I needed to get out of her space (I was about 5 feet away from her chair) and how she would leave if we asked her to and she had her own car and we could call the police if we wanted. So I left again.


Unsurprisingly, the cursing didn't stop, but as I got up to go over to tell her she needed to leave the security guard approached (my colleague had heard our last interaction and called her on the radio, anticipating what would happen next). The security guard escorted her out while she continued to curse and make complaints about me getting in her space and being racist (she said she was being kicked out because she was black and that I had been rude to her but nicer to the white woman I helped with her web browser). Since I grew up in a culture with institutionalized racism, I am sure I have some racist feelings and beliefs at a subconscious level, but I know I didn't make this woman leave because of the color of her skin and I am confident that I would have treated a white person who was behaving the same way in a very similar respect.


Both of my colleagues on the floor came over to say how mean that woman was and how I had been perfectly reasonable with her. Even a patron came up to basically say the same thing. I know they were trying to help me feel better, and I appreciated it, but actually...I didn't need help. I was feeling pretty good about myself. One of the things I worry about disqualifying me from management is not being emotionally tough enough to be the person who tells patrons they have to leave, or to stand up to people who are being verbally abusive. I did have the safety net of the security guard to fall back on, but I still felt like the confrontation I had today was an indication that I was getting better at it and would eventually be able to do it well. I dreaded the conversations I had with her a little, but I still had them, and had them confidently without getting emotional myself.


So that was a victory for me, in a weird way.