Is it about his skin color?

03/02/06

We all four got together to have a dinner with my friend who is going to Asia for 5 weeks. Since it was a lottery night and the prize was huge, we had an idea of buying the lottery together. My friend and I volunteered to go to the grocery store to buy it. He bought five tickets. We had too much fun talking until my friend realized that the owner did not give him a change back. We went back to the store and the owner insisted that my friend gave him 5 dollar bill and that was the only 5 dollar bill he had. But I said that was my 5 dollar bill, my friend gave 10 dollar bill.

They had an argument. Obviously the owner had no idea what he was talking about because when we first stepped into the store, he thought we came back for the forgotten 5 lottery tickets. Then he said my friend bought 10 tickets. He insisted of not giving the change back. My friend’s face got red so he called the police.

Firstly, he asked my friend to call the police. Then, surprisingly, he gave 5 dollars back to my friend because he did not want to deal with trouble for just 5 dollars.

I laughed so hard when we walked out because I knew my friend did not call the police; he pretended. So I told him that I thought the reason the owner gave in so easily was because my friend was white so the owner who was an Arab looking did not want to deal with him. My friend was not even articulate in explaining the situation. I wondered if he were black or Asians, would the result be the same? Would the owner treat them the same as to my friend? Or am I trying to interpret this incident into racial bias too much? But I still think so.