Experiencing Bias, Prejudice, & Oppression

Witnessing bias, prejudice and oppression is a natural occurrence for individuals belonging to social identities considered inferior and/or invisible.  Almost daily I witness teachers telling crying students “Nothing is wrong with you so stop crying”.  My male friends constantly dish out sexist comments such as “women are sensitive, emotional, “trifling”” as if men can do no wrong.  My female counterparts tear at each other every chance they get.  My co-workers have been known to step on one another in order to get ahead and I find myself falling into stereotypes about other groups.  A co-worker approached me last week and stated “That was so unprofessional, this is why I don’t deal with your people” and thought that because she was biracial (black and white) her comment was not racist.  Even after I challenged her by stating “For one you’re grouping me in with African Americans and I can tell you my culture is somewhat different. Secondly, you’re invalidating my heritage by stating that I do not know how to be professional because you have deal with one or two or even three black people who were unprofessional.  Your statement is even more disrespectful because we have been working together for four year and have never known me to be unprofessional.  You, yourself have stated that I might be the most professional of all your co-workers.”  I shake my head at these types of interactions and prior to this diversity course I probably would not have challenged her on the comment.

            To be quite frank the interaction did not incite all negative feelings because of the diversity class in which I am currently enrolled.  I did realize how passionate I have become about issues of diversity but understood that she was a victim of her environment and if I continue to allow instances such as this one go on unchallenged I would be just as responsible as society for the isms it created.  I would be supporting the inequity it creates for those social groups who are marginalized and oppressed.  From our interaction I could easily assume that the likelihood of our organization hiring a black own business was slim to none but because I challenge her on the comment and made her realize how much she valued me as an employee and how sound my work ethics was, I challenged the racists recordings (Margles & Margles, 2010) she inherited from her culture and reminded her of her black half.  I showed her the “your people” she referred to in that statement included her father and how would he feel if he overheard her statement.  I believe I did use the opportunity to create greater opportunities for equity and forced her to reflect on the comment she made.

References

Margles, S., & Margles, R. M. (2010). Inverting racism's distortions. Our Schools/Our Selves,

19(3), 137—149