Throughout the semester, we discussed and analyzed thought-provoking essays from different scholars and bloggers. (As a side note, one of my favorite was definitely Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's "Racism Without Racists" with his four frames of color-blind racism--a brilliant way to look at the new form of racism that is present!).
This class definitely opened my eyes to new perspectives. A lot of these perspectives I would have never imagined! For instance, although I had analyzed Miley Cyrus's VMA twerking incident from the feminist, consumerism and media perspective, I had not stopped to think of the heavy racial content that the performance (as well as her personal new image and attitude) carried. Marx in Drag's blog post, as well as the discussion that we had as a class seriously opened my eyes to different perspectives.
To sum up the semester, instead of focusing on all the different themes that we interpreted, I'd like to get a little more personal.
I don't believe I ever experienced prejudice or racial profiling until quite recently. There were two specific situations that I experienced this year.
A couple of months ago, I was grocery shopping with my mother and my sister at Sam's Club in Hodgins, Ill. For those who've never been to a Sam's Club, there is normally a staff member at the exit to highlight your receipt as your ticket out (to ensure that you paid for your purchases).
I'm used to the the Sam's Club that's closer to my house. Perhaps it's because the employees there are used to the fact that most of their customers are either Hispanic or African-American, but the employee at the door briefly glances at our cart and then highlights our receipt.
However, when we went to the Hodgkins location, where customers appeared to be predominately White, things took a different turn. As we walked to the exit, there were two sets of [white] people whose receipts were instantly highlighted by the employee at the exit, who coincidentally happened to be white. However, when we reached the exit, she stopped to count our items--all 19 of them--before she decided to highlight our receipt.
I was appalled that the lady literally counted all our items before she let us leave.If we had all been white (or white-skinned like I am), would she have "randomly" selected us? Was this a coincidence that she stopped us? My sister angrily muttered something indecent under her breath. She often jokes that at a glance I can pass as white. However, both my mother and my sister's skin are brown. Their hair is dark and curly, and they have experienced more prejudice than I have.
The second incident happened at work.
It isn't until I open my mouth that my Latino heritage is obvious. I have the strongest accent from my siblings (perhaps since I am the oldest, and I therefore learned the language on my own, since my parents didn't speak the language when I was growing up).
A few weeks ago I was making a phone call at work. The person at the other end of the phone was having trouble understanding me. "I don't know what you are saying!" she exclaimed, "you have such a strong accent."
I was shocked and insulted. Yes, my accent is present, but it isn't to the point where other people don't understand. The way she said it, was even worse. There was rudeness and I couldn't help but think of her as racist because she made it a point to bring up my accent.
Was I right to feel offended by the woman's remark?
I think these types of issues come up a lot in every day life. I work in retail and do a lot of over the phone orders and at times there will be people that have an accent and it is harder for me to understand. I will usually politely ask for them to repeat the question or item name for me again. I think that it is wrong that she pointed out that it is because of your accent, like it is your fault she can't hear or understand by getting angry. The way in which people handle these types of situations are not sensible and they need to be more aware of other people's feelings.
ReplyDeleteI can totally understand your feeling because I had experienced the same situation like you did when making a phone call. I worked at an advertising company as a receptionist where I handles most of the phone calls. I remember this one time where I picked up this phone call from this English speaking lady. I asked her if there is anything that I could help her with, but she replied back and said " I don't wanna talk to you with your accent". At that point, I felt insulted not because I was hurt for speaking English with accent, I was hurt because of the way that she is being racist. Although, I still have to be kind to her, I felt my heart was completely tore on how rude she was.
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ReplyDeleteYes, you were right to feel offended by the ladies remark, and this is because of how she said it. Although we all have our differences, I truly believe that there are easier and simpler ways to say something without actually being hurtful.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if she had a difficult time understanding your accent, she could have asked you nicely to repeat yourself.
Overall, I think we all experience this negativity. I moved to America at the age of 5, when I first came to school people used to pick on me because I did not know English at all. I felt offended, but in the end it does not influence who we become or how we carry on with our lives.
I truly believe it is important to acknowledge other people's opinion, but not always take it into consideration or let it impact you in any negative way because they do not know the whole story of who we are or what makes us different.