Dear Eric: While shopping at Costco, I witnessed a woman in her 40s, who appeared to be struggling with a large, heavy box on a high shelf. As she attempted to remove it, the box slipped and fell in front of me.

I hesitated to help, partly out of concern for my own safety in lifting something potentially heavy, and partly because I wasn’t sure how to react. I also thought she could have asked an employee for help, which is what I would have done. By the way, I’m a petite Asian woman in my late 50s, and the lady who dropped the box was a white woman.

As I walked away, she confronted me, saying she would have offered to help if the roles were reversed. This made me feel guilty, so I offered to assist her, but she declined and walked away upset. I’m left wondering if I was wrong not to help her immediately and if it’s fair for her to have confronted me like that. Additionally, I’m curious if the racial dynamics might have played a role in my reaction or her response.

– Hesitant Helper

Dear Helper: One thing is for sure: the lawyers who handle liability for the Costco corporation would have greatly preferred that the woman ask an employee for help with the heavy box instead of trying to wrangle it down herself.

Other things are less clear. We’ll never know if your race was a motivator for her, consciously or unconsciously. But, as a person of color, being yelled at in public like that possibly brought up hard emotions for you from other experiences that were more overtly racialized. It’s healthy to process that.

I’m unsure when she wanted your help – while getting the box down or when trying to pick it back up. Either way, her decision-making has nothing to do with you. What if you had a bad back? What if you’d just gotten a manicure? One is never going to go wrong asking another person “Do you want help?” But you can also communicate clearly about what help is possible if it’s asked for. “I don’t feel safe supporting that box, but if you push it back and wait, I can grab an employee.”

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Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at [email protected] or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.