The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

A memory of when I experienced prejudice personally came when I first started working in corporate America. I was always told that my name would make it hard for me to obtain jobs in a white-washed corporate setting, but I was determined to prove everyone wrong. I was on a panel of interviewers at a company job fair. Amongst the panel was the president of human resources. We'd never met nor conversed, so she was not aware of who I was nor my position within the company. She read over a list of what she thought was the list of interviewee's, but instead she was reading the list of interviewers. She went through the list out loud and when she got to my name she struggled to pronounce it (as most people do). After butchering it several times, she laughed and jokingly stated "wow I would never hire someone with a name like that". I looked down the table, pointed to my name tag, and stated "you already did".

She apologized over and over and said she did not mean to offend me, and I told her it was okay. I did feel a little embarrassed, as I knew that this was more than likely her thought process for most interview candidates. However, I am glad to have been sitting there when she made the comment and hopefully she will never make those types of judgements again.

The president of HR would have to change her mindset if she was going to learn anything from the incident. There is no telling at all just how many people have been denied jobs from that company based on something they themselves had no control over. I truthfully and whole-heartedly believed that she learned her lesson that day, one that will hopefully stick with her for the rest of her life.