Question; how do you present yourself externally? How are you dressed? I (a white dude in my 30s) recently went to a high end clothes shop, intending to buy a

Question; how do you present yourself externally? How are you dressed? I (a white dude in my 30s) recently went to a high end clothes shop, intending to buy a nice shirt for Christmas. As I asked one of the sales assistants for help, she instantly proclaimed they "have nothing in my size" and that I "must use their online store". This shocked me a bit as, while in a big guy I'm far from huge. I work out a lot, and I'm a tad big, but come on... I asked if I could try the largest shirt they stock in store and she reluctantly agreed, and after putting it on it was about 4 sizes too big. The thing is, I walked in wearing a dirty fleece jacket, and I hadn't shaved for about 2 weeks as I had been really ill, it was my first day back at work for for a while. The experience felt alien to be because usually the sales assistants will fight for my attention - presumably because I look like good commission. Except on this one occasion I looked like trouble - maybe a homeless person taking the piss :) While I've never experienced racism, for obvious reasons, and can't testify to what that feels like, I suspect this is a low level variation of the same effect that black/east Asian people experience daily. The hostess sees you approach and instantly stereotypes you as a certain type of person. Obviously, racial stereotypes will play a part in this classification. But just like I was classified as "scruffy weirdo" by the sales assistant in the clothes store, I might just as well have been turned away by the same restaurant you went to, had I gone there looking like I did. I could go and tell you "ayo, you need to change your external appearance for people to treat you right" that sounds... incredibly patronizing, racist and wrong. So I'm not going to do that. But at the same time it is a solution to this "problem"... just like the when I went shopping the next day, I had shaved and put on a clean shirt, and suddenly everyone was happy to help and had clothes in my size to sell me :/ Summary; it's more about classifying people based on their external appearance than it is about straight-up racism. I'm sure they had a table for a black guy in a Gucci suit, and they would've been fully booked for a scruffy, homeless-looking white guy.