An ordinary interaction on an ordinary day for a Black person can lead to tension and mortal fear.

It was in March 2022 around 1:30 in the afternoon when I stopped by a laundromat in Marina to wash my bath mats. I walked in holding the mats and laundry detergent in my arms, then placed the mats into the washer and added coins. A young couple sat talking near the window; a worker, carrying keys on his hip, unloaded coins from the machines; some women folded clothes, while another worker was tending to some plumbing. A soap opera played on a TV mounted high on the wall.

The washing machine cycle stopped and I placed my bath mats in a dryer; I left to go run some errands while the cycle ran. I bought a broom at a hardware store nearby and about 15 minutes later I walked back into the laundromat with my purse on one arm and a new broom underneath my other arm. As I entered, I was approached by a short, bald white man – the worker with the keys on his hip – who, from about five feet away asked me, “Is that a gun?”

I replied, “It’s a broom.” He turned and walked away like it was nothing. But I was angry and annoyed and felt disrespected – and more importantly, unsafe. He had seen me, a Black woman, as someone he suspected of walking into his business carrying a weapon. His question posed a threat to my safety; anyone in the laundromat, including him, could have been in possession of a concealed weapon and responded by firing. Or they might have called 911 to report, “A Black woman with a gun.” I took my mats out of the dryer and left.

In the United States, gun violence is on the rise. On June 25, President Joe Biden signed into law the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a safety measure to address gun violence; a day late and a dollar short for the 19 students and two teachers who were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

The bill comes amid an outcry from Uvalde, the families of the victims demanding actions. Notably, that shooting came less than two weeks after a racially motivated shooting in a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, leaving 10 people dead.

Since then, shootings have permeated the news. And I am thinking back on my simple encounter in a laundromat that ended peacefully, but realizing the scenario could have so easily been different. As a professional corrections officer, I am trained to see how weapons can be used and a situation with weapons, real or perceived, might escalate.

I am living proof of racism and discrimination in this country, and its effects of terrifying and haunting the Black people who have experienced it. As a young Black girl growing up in the Jim Crow South, I was reminded every day of who I am; a Negro person, with signs prohibiting me from entering the front doors of public spaces. My parents taught me to never trust white people, because it could only lead to trouble or harm.

A broom doesn’t even resemble a gun. But any object can resemble a threat if that’s what a person is primed to see.

LILLIAN JOHNSON was born in North Carolina and lives in Salinas. This is her first published piece.