The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

An incident that I can remember where I personally experienced an incidence of bias is when I took a class at a predominantly African American school.  I was one of four Caucasian students in a class of about thirty.   The class was a drama class, therefore, we had to do a bunch of acting and the final assignment was to perform a skit within our group.  There were about eight students in each group.  In this particular class many of the students also worked together.  I did not work with any of them as I work in my own family childcare program and I did not know any of them before the class started. In our skit there was several parts that required dancing and I will never forget one lady saying “girl you just cannot dance can you?”  I believe by saying this too me she was playing upon the stereotype that white people cannot dance.  I had already told the group, when they were assigning parts that I did not want to have the part with dancing, but, for some reason they kept giving me that part.  Luckily, I ended up with a different part before the final skit was performed in front of an audience. 

Equity was diminished, when the lady pointed out that I could not dance after I had mentioned that I did not want a dancing part, I felt that I would not be very helpful in this group.  I wanted to stay quiet and not get in the way.  I felt that I just needed to take the part they gave me and do my best with it.  It was unfair, that I was never given the opportunity to share with my group what I would be good at doing in the skit. 

After this incident, I no longer looked forward to the class, in fact I dreaded having to go.  I continued to worry that I would not do well enough for my group and that I would cause our group grade to be low.  Fortunately, I had made a few friends in the class and one of the ladies that I was able to talk too had worked with the individual who had made me feel so bad.  She explained that this was how this women was and to not let it get to me.  Unfortunately, it continued to bother me and I often wondered how this individual could work with children, if she treated adults like this.  To this day, I often think about this situation and how much it affected me. It is amazing how one incident can affect you throughout your life.

I believe that greater equity could have been a part of this incident if the group would have made sure that all individuals were given the opportunity to share what parts would be best for them in the skit.  Granted, I understand that not everyone could get their first choice, but, surely they would be a part that each person would have been comfortable with.  Further, being singled out and having to do what one does not do well and being called out should be eliminated in order to alleviate breaking down ones self-esteem, confidence and lack of feeling important.