The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

One experience that I would like to personally share is many years ago when my oldest daughter was younger we took a family vacation to Disney World. At the time, my daughter was probably about three or four years of age and was in a stroller.  As you can imagine the theme park can be overcrowded with droves and droves of people.  During this time the parade was just getting started and my daughter could not see all of the Disney characters because she was in the stroller. As people normally do, we pushed our way into the crowd so that we could get a good view.  As all the people were moving forward there was this white man who was beside me who blurted out “stay in the back where you belong you black bi---” and pushed me forward into the crowd.  Well needless to say, my husband who was behind me did not take to kindly to this as he reacted and pushed the man back and told him not to put his hands on his wife. The man then glared at my husband and continued to push his way to the other side into the crowd. 

This particular incident diminished equity when the man called me out of my name. His deliberate racial behavior, attitude and statement removed all opportunities to promote peace. This deliberate hostile act is known as a microassault which was discussed during Dr. Sue’s media segment on micro-aggressions (Laureate Education, 2011).

The emotional feelings that I experienced on that day was that of anger, fear and sadness. I became angry because this man disrespected me and thought that it was okay to call me out of my name and then push me. I was also angry because he thought that he was in some way superior to me and that hatred was in his heart. My heart became fearful because my husband became enraged and pushed him back in order to protect me.  I was afraid that this was going to lead into a bad situation. So I calmed my husband down and talked him into not taking this incident any further. It took me a while to let that incident go but I was saddened by the fact that racism still existed and that this man had this amount of hatred and anger in his heart.   

In this situation in order to bring about equity the man that pushed me would have had to have a softened heart. His behavior and superiority mentality of how he viewed me as a black woman would have had to change. However, I chose to not stay angry and not to hold a grudge against this man and others that are ignorant just as he was. I chose not to develop and or hold onto racial attitudes and behaviors because I had a bad experience and a victim of someone else's prejudices. I believe that this situation helped me to grow and become more tolerant of other people’s ignorance.