Unseen and Unheard: My First Big Purchase and the Questions That Still Haunt Me

In this personal story, I recount my first major purchase after college—a simple furniture buy that turned into a moment of deep internal conflict. Was I being profiled? Was I invisible because I was young… or Black… or both? 

This isn’t just about a trip to Sears in 1992—it’s about what it means to exist in a space where you’re supposed to belong but don’t feel seen. 

Listen in as I break down the emotions, the questions, and how this moment shaped my perspective as a future discrimination attorney and judge. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone. This is Tony Reeves. Let's get to it.

(00:30):
It was nineteen ninety two. I had just landed my
first real job and moved to Tallahassee, Florida. I had
a good salary, a new apartment, but there was nothing
in it. However, I did have a major credit card
to a particular store, and so I decided that I
was going to use that credit card to invest in

(00:52):
my first pizza piece of furniture. And boy, I was
pumped until I stood in that store for fifteen minute
and no one, I mean no one helped me. That's
when the questions started. So let me set the stage

(01:13):
for you for how this was going down. In nineteen
ninety two. I was a young fresh college grad. I
had just recently graduated nineteen ninety one, and I just
recently have been hired to work for the state of Florida.
And so I relocated from Tampa, Florida to Tallassi, Florida,
and I bought and I got this new apartment and
it was completely bare. You know. I had some pots, TV,

(01:33):
but not much else. But I did have this major
credit card that had a five thousand dollars lemon on it,
and so I decided that I would set my fights
on getting a sectional couch. So I'm sitting here and
I'm pumped up and I'm motivated, and so I walked
into this store and I went in with my usual
gear that I often wear when i'm kind of on
my own time. I was wearing twenty two years old,

(01:53):
wearing sweats hat and you know, turned to the back, sneakers,
basically just chill, relax, just kind of hanging out for
And in my mind, I wasn't just going to the
window shop. I was going there to buy, got my
credit card in hand, got myself ready to go, and
I'm ready to make this thing. Do what to do.
And so I'm pumped up and ready for this major purchase,

(02:14):
my very first purchase from my apartment. But then when
I got to the store, something weird happened. I spent
at least, you know, ten to fifteen minutes examining the couch.
You know, I sat on it, reclined on it, checked
every corner and everything like this, even the color and
everything like that. It had everything I wanted. It had

(02:38):
to recline in chairs, It had a cup holder, a
pull out for the little sized bed man this thing
was going to be slamming in my part in my apartment.
I could see it. But here's what hit me. No
one said a word to me. I mean I saw
several salespersons going by. They were all white, and all
they did was just walk by. They would look at
me and just keep walking. No one engaged me. I mean,

(03:02):
not one person offered to help me. Now, I'm not
gonna lie. After about fifteen minutes the store, I started
getting in my feels, and finally, when I was thinking
about leaving, a young lady wasn't even working in that
department finally stopped and asked me, have you been helped? No,
you know I've been here a while, because at that
particular point I did feel some kind of way because,

(03:24):
as I indicated, I had been there for about fifteen
minutes before anybody had said anything to me, So you
can imagine how I feel. Fortunately for me, she jumped
in immediately. She was very attentive. She kind of walked
me through everything. She wanted to make sure this was

(03:46):
the right size, the right color, and had all the
things and so forre She even got me upgrades, like
for in terms of the protections and everything. And financing. Well,
I had a card, but she was like, let me
get you see if we get you some discounts on
this thing, and so I was pumped up. So by
the time I left, I ended up buying this sectional
and I ended up having a much better experience because
of her. Now let's just be clear, my experience with

(04:07):
her was actually great, but the damage had already been done.
Why did it take fifteen minutes for someone, anyone to
acknowledge that I was even there? And despite the exemplary
treatment that she provided, there's still this underlying fact that
I couldn't quite realize in my mind. Why did no

(04:27):
one provide me any service? Now here's where it gets complicated.
I didn't know what lens to look through to determine
why I received this type of treatment. Was it racism?
Was it how I was dressed? Was it that I

(04:48):
looked too young to be spending this kind of money?
This couch was about two thousand dollars, twenty five hundred
dollars and so forth like that. So in my mind,
I'm trying to process why am I being treated this way?
But this is a psychological trap that a lot of
black generics ers know all too well. You've got to
remember we were raised in the wake of integration or desegregation.

(05:12):
We were told we could go anywhere, buy anything, be anything.
But when something like this happens, it made me question
was it just me? Was it the color of my skin,
was it the outfit that I was wearing. All of
these things started running through my mind because I was
trying to rule out these other things before I instinctively
said maybe it was my color, because I thought maybe

(05:34):
I should do this first. And it's interesting because I
pooled on this experience when years later I would go
on to be an attorney and I would run my
own law firm, and I for with five or six years,
I handled quite a few discrimination cases, and I came
to understand how subtle racism works. It's not always in

(05:56):
your faith. It's often about inference, about and how similarly
situated people are treated differently. And one of the things
that I had to learn early on was when I
was representing clients, was how to rule out everything else
before you got to discrimination portion of it. And it
was tough because what I know is this from my situation.
I was standing in playing sight and nobody helped me

(06:21):
I had the money, I had the means, but I
was ignored. In my mind, that was bad service. But
it wasn't just bad service. That was a choice. Whether
it was based on race, appearance, age, or bias, I
will never know, but it stuck with me and it
still does because at the end of the day, I

(06:46):
will never know what was the driving factor for me
to receive the type of service that I received, and
I'll never know if any of those particular things that
I was focusing on was the reason why. So I
ask you, have you ever felt like you were being
judged before you said a word, like you didn't look
the part drop a comment. Let's talk about it, because

(07:09):
this type and this kind of subtle exclusion, this invisible line,
is something that many of us in Generation X still
carry along with us. Trust me when I tell you this, people,
you're not crazy, you're not paranoid. You're just aware.