In order to turn this
incident into an opportunity for greater equity institutionalized
discrimination and oppression in hiring and promotions practices in the work
place has to be eradicated. Internalized
privilege and internalized oppression diminished the fairness in the incidence
and robbed me of a promotion that was due based on education and years of
experience. So, instead of
competitiveness there has to be a spirit of cooperation to work toward equally shared
goals of promoting social justice.
Friday, June 14, 2013
The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression
My memory of an incident
occurred in my professional career at my workplace when I was denied a position
that I was more than qualified for to a Caucasian colleague who was less
qualified educationally and experience wise. It came down overtly from our Caucasian
administrator that my Caucasian colleague would be the better fit for the
position. She offered no clear explanation; however, it was obvious that it was
an issue of race and privilege and I understood very well the hidden message.
The incident created neither feelings of anger, hurt and resentment for being
overlooked for what should have been my position without question if it was
done on merits, but I did not possess the look nor culture of the dominant
culture, and thus was disqualified.
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Audrey, I can really identify with this situation. I too have endured this. I hope society will wake up and become more educated about how this can affect the working environment.
ReplyDeleteI have been passed up for promotion at a job and it was given to a person I trained. It was a person that had only been there for a few months and I had been there for almost a year and a half. I was never even interviewed, nor was I told why. In fact the hiring personnel never talked to me the entire time I worked there. I quit and let them know why in a letter that I know would go in my file and go to the corporate offices. I see that you worked toward promoting social justice by continuing to be cooperative in your position and I guess basically let it show that it did not affect you, at least at work. I think we all try to let things roll off our backs in the spirit of getting along for the work place, but did you want to fight the decision. If you did could you have?
ReplyDeleteAudrey,
ReplyDeleteYou are exactly right, it was about the look of the company. Not every Caucasian has accepted African Americans as equals, hence what happened at your job. Image is everything in society, when an image is tainted or disrupted, they look at the obvious in the workplace or situation. For a while I was the only black women at my job and I started thinking am I a token employee? I later found out that it was not true, I have just as much respect there as any of my Caucasian co-workers, if not more, based on expertise. Thank you for sharing
Audrey,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your experience. I couldn't imagine having to go through that and really respect you for your reaction in saying you didn't feel angry about what had happened. I would have to honestly admit that I would be very angry if that had happened to me. I know many employers support equal opportunity employment, however I wonder how truly equal it is as we have learned as humans, we all host bias whether it its intentional or unintentional.
Shawna
Audrey,
ReplyDeleteI know this was an awful experience. I know how this could have made you feel being look over and never allowed an explanation to why you didn't get the position. Stuff like this always goes on in the workplace.