Share your experience(s) with prejudice

i grew up in the Barrio section of NE Los Angeles, El Sereno, a predominantly Latino working-class neighborhood interspersed w Asian families like mine

had this unpleasant experience during my senior year of high school when i ventured out into an exclusive white suburb, San Marino. home of multi-million $ homes/mansions,
as well as the Huntington Library where i was working as an usher on the week-ends.

i biked to-and-from work---carrying my work uniform in a gym bag, ~ 30 min each way,
one time, i was stopped by a cop, for biking in San Marion.

no one bikes there; but are lots of Benz, Bentley, Cadillac, Lincoln.

i was scared, it was obvious, and the white cop stepped up the pressure
to intimidate a frightened 17-yr old, calling in to see if there were any reports of stolen bikes.

he finally let me go after i had shown him my work uniform and ID.

i was too scared to tell anyone at work, not wanting anyone there to suspect that i may have done something wrong; after all, why would a cop stop you.

​

this is a recent article about LA's exclusive suburb of San Marion, whose demographics have been shifting to be ~ 50% Asian,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...clusive-los-angeles-suburb-lost-its-whiteness​

 

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I remember after graduating from law school I went on a job interview with a successful firm in Houston.

I am 6'5", blonde and blue eyed and at that time was working out 10 times a week.

Everyone in the office was white and male except for very attractive white and Hispanic female secretaries and receptionists.

The partners (after parading me around) took me into a large conference room and started asking me questions like....... where did you grow up... what did you father do ......... what kind of music do you listen to ........ what news station do you watch.... are you married..... do you have a girlfriend.... what is her name, what does she do for a living.... do you have a picture?

The next day the partners all invited me to go out with them to talk some more. We did speak and they offered me a job at about twice what I expected. I took the job.......... about a month later one of the partners at lunch told me that they hired me because "i fit in" and that the firm did not hire women because they didn't make good lawyers and they did not like minorities because the clients didn't like them.

I worked there for 6 months. Easiest job I have ever had.

TLDR: I got a job because I was a big white guy

 

1st tie I experienced prejudice as in the 6th grade, I was in the locker room after PE, the only black guy with about 4 other white guys up until this point I had never had issues with anyone.

I don't remember exactly what it was but I think somebody asked for another guys combination from across the room and as the guy started to say it another guy said don't say that out loud when we got ****** in here.

This guy was a huge douche and was a spoiled rich boy, I was kind of embarrassed but the other guys where not really feeling him and he tried to laugh it off.

Had not really thought about it in awhile and now that I think of it those other guys looked as embarrassed as me and this was in the late 70"s which actually says something.

Things got worse as grew older, the last instance was a boss pretty much saying he let me go because I was big scary black guy and people where uncomfortable, this was during a unemployment hearing to see if I should receive benefits.

I won.

I will say this, my most ride or die friends have mostly been white.

 

My FIRST experience? I was YOUNG. 2nd grade max. I was visiting my grandma (who was born in Mexico) in podunk Texas for the summer. I immediately made friends with the black kid next door. All I remember was having a blast. I was going to public school in H-Tine at the time. Black, white, asian, whatever, it didn't phase me. Again, I was young, that stuff doesn't register unless your parents teach it to you.

Not the case with my rural Grandma though. She said I needed to stop playing with that kid or I'd get black spots. Lulz? Somehow, at that young age, my reaction was neither fear nor acceptance of what she said. From that day on I truly believed my grandma was an idiot (she was, but she seemed like a great mother to my mom so whatever). Again, I was too young to really have an awareness of racism. So my assumption wasn't - oh, she's racist. My assumption was - this country-living old lady is ****ing dumb. I guess I never looked at her the same.

As I continued on with public school in H-tine, again, racism was just not on my immediate radar. If I encountered it, it likely didn't phase me. It wasn't until 10th grade, when I was driving out in Langham Creek, when a white cop pulled me and my friends over and asked if we had a runaway (black friend was in the car). Again - that didn't really compute in my head immediately, it wasn't until after some discussion and reflection, that I began to understand how unacceptable that was and that racism lurked everywhere.

 

So many, some comical some not. A lot of sand n***** comments from kids and some adults. When I played little league, everyone called me "fudge" as I was the only minority on the team.

One incident that sticks with me is after moving my parents lawn and sitting out front having a bear on the porch a pickup truck drives by and the guy lowers his window to yell "f***king Mexican spic". I watched as his truck drove into the golf course across from the house, and parked. So I walked into the lobby of the course as the guy was in line and yelled back at him, "Hey, I'm a dothead not a spic - get your bigoted sluts right!" where everyone could hear me. The guy just looked away. I said it again. The manager came out and asked me what the problem was - I explained what happened, and to my surprise they revoked his membership.

There are tons of other instances. Where people ask me if I work at a 7-11. Or if I am a delivery guy when walking into a building. Or the IT guy when setting up equipment for a presentation I am about to give.

 

Some dude on ebay selling used motorcycle parts told me that he was concerned with my eastern european name - he claimed that eastern europeans "cause problems" when buying on ebay. I doubt that he'd say something like this to my face though, so this doesn't real count as open prejudice.

PS OP is funny - asks for no stories of things happening to friends and then posts a story of things happening to friend. What gives?

 

No way. Someone doesn't like you as a poster on this BBS? I have no idea why!

 

Delete

 

It seems like you got an agenda here.

 

Ya I think you have an agenda here.