The Personal Side of Prejudice

What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression?

One situation where I feel that I was the subject of prejudice happened to me more than ten years ago. I had just graduated high school and was working full time as a teacher’s assistant at a pre-school while I took college classes at night. One of my Aunt’s had worked at the pre-school as a teacher for many years and recommended me as a good hire, so the director hired me. I considered myself a hard worker; I did whatever I was asked to do and more. I was scheduled to work 9:30 to 6:30, but the director would call me to come in early quite often to cover for staff who called in at the last minute. I often worked 11 to 12 hour days with no complaints.

I have mentioned my ethnicity in previous blog post, but just to recap, I am half black and half white. My hair is black, long and wavy and my skin is extremely light. At the time I was only 19 and was very trim (5’4, 110 lbs). My director was African American with medium brown skin, she was slightly heavy set, her hair was short and she wore it in a natural, twist style. She always seemed to be polite to me, until one day we were having a staff development meeting. During the meeting we were discussing how to help support the children in areas of self esteem. She began talking about issues that she had with her own self esteem as a child. She mentioned that she was taunted about her weight and told she was too dark; she looked at me and said “Girls that looked like April made my life miserable”. She smiled when she said it, maybe she thought she was complementing me or insinuating that I was pretty, but it didn’t feel like a complement and I felt put on the spot about something that had nothing to do with me. About a month later it was time for our annual raises and bonus checks for those who were going above and beyond their work responsibilities. The raises ranged from 10 cents to 75 cents based on merit. I had been working for the company for a year and a half and had not received a raise yet, so I was expecting a good raise and a bonus check. I was close friends with two other employees. They both had been working at the pre-school for about 6 months and one of them worked only part time. They were both African American. When we opened our checks, I was surprised that they each had received a 75 cent raise and the bonus check of $200 and I received a raise of 10 cent and no bonus. At that moment I realized that the director had a personal biased against me.

In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

I feel that I was experiencing a racial biased. The directors feelings about me were solely based on my outside appearance and previous experiences she had with people who had a similar appearance. Her feelings had nothing to do with my personality or work ethic. This incident diminished equity because the director let or feelings impede on how I was treated in the work place.

What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

I don’t know if my young age and little real life experience had an increased impact on my feelings, but I was extremely hurt. I can remember going home on my lunch break and bursting in to tears when I told my mom what had happened. I considered myself a hard working and to not have it recognized because of someone else’s personal problem was very hurtful.

What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

In this situation, the director would have to change. I think that she needs to seek counseling about incidents that greatly impacted her life, because those experiences have caused her to have an extreme biased about a certain group of people. Even though this individual hurt my feelings greatly, I feel bad that she also experienced hurt and pain based on her physical appearance.