If you're a member of a minority group, it's ridiculously easy to find out if white people are racist or not. Just say "What?" to them twice in a row.

They say something, you say "What?" They repeat themselves, you say "What?" And now, whether they want it or not, the truth will come flying out.

I discovered this while shopping at Mitsuwa, a fantastic Japanese market/mall just across the river in New Jersey. I love everything about Japan -- the food, the culture, the people -- so I hang out there every chance I get. I eat noodles or curry at one of the restaurants, buy shiso and miso and sake at the supermarket, and smell all the air fresheners at the Pimp My Asian Car store. All the while wondering, why do I live in the U. S.?

Naturally, the last thing I suspected was that I was racist, until I was confronted face-to-face with the cold, hard facts.

At the supermarket the cashier rang up all my stuff, and I handed her a credit card. She swiped it through the machine, then shook her head. "Declined," she said.

"That's weird," I said. "Well, I have a lot of other cards, so at least one of them's gotta work."

Here came her first "What?"

"I have a lot more credit cards, so let's try another one."

Second "What?"

In a nanosecond my brain sprinted off on its own, reaching a decision without any conscious involvement from me. "Must speak in manner she'll understand," it decided. "Speak the way Asians speak."

So I said, "ME HAVE CARD THAT VELY, VELY GOOD!"

Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that bad. Maybe I exaggerate. But I definitely dropped all the extra words, and changed it all to present tense. It's the thought that counts, and the thought offended the pants off me.

The second it was out of my mouth I realized I'd done something horribly wrong. Something so wrong, in fact, that adding "ching chang chong" to the end wouldn't have made the least bit of difference. I immediately corrected myself: "I have more cards you can try," I said.

The clerk smiled politely as I wished the ground would open up and swallow me. Did I honestly think I had to drop all the prepositions from my sentence before Japanese people could understand me? Did I seriously think this woman became befuddled encountering the first-person singular preposition? The way I was talking made Jackie Chan sound like Gore Vidal.

I scurried off as fast I could, determined never to return, with a stern resolution in my head never to darken a foreign doorstep with my stupidity again.

I'd like to say that I learned something from this, but really I'm not so sure. Can you generalize from an isolated, spur-of-the-moment aberraton? Can a person be racist against people they love? And once you've decided you're racist, what can you do to stop?

Now that I know about the secret, though, I'm absolutely dying to use it. After a couple well-placed "What?"'s, would people start calling me "girlfriend"? Thrust a hand on a hip and call me "bitch"? With my luck they'd probably see the gray hair and repeat themselves, loud and slow, and that would just make me feel even worse.