The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression
By
Anita L. Coles
I grew up in a state where the majority of the people were prejudice.
However, unless one knew what to look for regarding prejudice one might miss
the little subtle signs, for example, many years ago, a situation took place in
high school during gym class (now call PE).
During some of our gym exercises the girls would need to hold
hands. (There were only two Blacks in our gym class, me and another girl) This particular
Caucasian girl (back in the day the girl and boy gym classes where separate)
would hold out her pinky finger to me and she would tell me “no I am not
holding your hand; give me your ‘baby’ finger,” and that was the extent of our
holding hands. Sad part was that the teachers would allow (Taylor, 2011) .
As I stated before, I have encountered many of such as above
mentioned; there are some that I have forgotten; I would need to think really hard
to remember, and then there are some that are hard to forget. The next one was
when I was working in a factory I was still quite young and had not experience
adult individuals being prejudice toward me. A few days after starting work, an
older Caucasian male told me that he did not want to work with me because I was
“Colored.” My response to this particular gentleman was that that was his
problem not mine, and as long as he did not hit me or use any derogatory words towards me…everything would be fine (Less than
six months were became very good friends).
(Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010, p. 24).
When my family and
I moved to New Mexico I was sure life would be different as far as experiencing
prejudice and so forth. I thought that
all people of color experience the same things. Well I was wrong, I learned
that prejudices comes in many forms and is the product many of oppressed
situations. I was doing my monthly grocery shopping. The individual who was my
cashier was Caucasian male; he totaled my account to be a little over $200.00.
I than realized that I had left my “card” in my car, I informed the cashier
that I would need to run to my car to retrieve my card.
The casher told me
that he would wait until I returned. I ran to my car found my card; grabbed my
card and run back to the cashier. When I went to hand the cashier my card, I
noticed that my groceries dollar amount had changed considerably; it went from
over $200.00, to almost half the amount;
just as I was about to ask him why the amount changed he noticed my card and
quickly hit the cash register keys to change back to the $200.00.
Then it hit me, he
thought (or better yet, assumed) that I meant that I was going to get a “Food
Stamp Card.” (EBT card) Once he realized
his mistake he turned redder than a beet, he sheepishly apologized, and tried
really hard to quickly bag my groceries. I did mention to him that he may not
want to prejudge the next individual before first gathering all facts there
were other people waiting to check out behind me, each smiled and nodded their heads
in agreement (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010, p. 26).
To be honest, I
felt a little sorry for the young man because he truly displayed prejudgment. I
am sure had I not been a person of color he would have expected the card to
have been “Visa,” MasterCard,” or
something similar. As an educator, I
really saw this as an opportunity to help a young man understand how prejudice
can work, and if he wanted to, he could use the situation as an opportunity as
well to learn a valuable lesson (Derman-Sparks & Olsen Edwards, 2010, p. 21).
We all have our own
bias; prejudices; and maybe even oppress a person or two; I know I have my and
am trying to understand and work my way through them. Dealing with the girl in my gym class, the
man at the factory, and the young cashier reminds me that we are not perfect
and before I can work on someone’s bias; prejudices; and creating the act of oppression
I first need to understand and work on my own (Derman-Sparks & Olsen
Edwards, 2010, p. 23).
Reference
Derman-Sparks, L., & Olsen Edwards, J. (2010) Anti-bias education for y
young children.
The National Association for the Education of
Young Children;
Library of Congress Number 2009938138
ISBN: 978-1-928896-67-8
NAEYC item# 254.