Discrimination, American Style!

Discrimination, American Style

Now, this is a serious matter, and I am not  going to do justice to this, I know. No profound insights  here, just my own experience .

To start with, there are racist people all over the world – just read comments on videos on Youtube, or comments on news items filled in with racial hatred and bigotry.  I never met them in person, thank God.

As a nation, United States has made monumental strides in race relations. We have elected Obama as President.  That’s huge!

However, in India,  shades of darkness or fairness  of skin continue to be relevant  even today.

An  old Indian lady who I love dearly says, “Obama is alright I guess, but Michelle looks kind of uncivilized.”

“How  so?” I ask.

“Well, she looks kind of like my maid, in fact she is darker. She walks like her too” the lady chuckles.

I casually inform her that Michelle Obama has a Law degree from Yale University. The old lady apologizes immediately for her casual remark. No harm done.

The old lady is my mom.

So, is it  perception that  leads to behavior that  is sometimes funny, sometimes not so funny, sometimes infuriatingly insulting?

I can’t answer that, but ,without further ado,  here are  snippets from the last three and a half decades:

Roofer?

In the mid nineties, I was in my “fitness mode”,  cropped hair, a hard body (well, sort of), I hardly looked professorial.  I was in a bar with some male friends, we were not in a predatory “let’s hit on the girls” mood  at all. However, an attractive woman, clearly in her thirties and obviously not a college student, was sitting nearby and I struck up a conversation with her. While we were making small talk, I noticed she was staring  at me with a somewhat  amused look. She kept on smirking for while.  Suddenly, she came clean

“Hey I know you!” she blurted out.

“Really!” I have never seen her before!

“I fixed my roof this summer and you were on the roofing crew! I remember you!”

I laughed.

Repairing roofs  of American houses requires walking on sloped, slanted surfaces, with buckets of hot tar and other seriously dangerous equipment.  This is also done usually in the middle of summer on dry days when the temperatures can reach 30 -38 centigrade.

One of the most arduous, dangerous and low-paid jobs in America, the roofing crew almost entirely consists of uneducated Mexican immigrants, many of them illegal. However, many of these young men are in great physical shape and some have close cropped hair as well.

I tried the truth. “Actually, I am a college professor.”

She laughed heartily for about 30 seconds. I guess the alcohol was getting to her.

“That’s a good one, Jose”, she said, still giggling, “did you think you can pull this off?  College prof, hahaha, good one, hahaha” she continued laughing.

I knew this was a lost cause.

“Hahaha” I laughed sheepishly as well, and managed to leave the scene in a few minutes.

I found this funny, primarily because I had better social options at that time (seriously!). If I was really  trying to befriend her, this would  be a bummer!

Thief?

In the mid-eighties, married and with a three-year old son, we went to Yellowstone National Park for the first time. The park is huge, many  people do not know it’s about the size of the state of West Bengal, or bigger than the entire state of Punjab. We stayed in the Signal Mountain Lodge, in a cabin by  a beautiful lake for about four or five days and absolutely loved it. But we left the park on a sour note.

Checking out of the hotel, I was standing in line after two people, my wife and son were sitting nearby  on a couch  in the hotel lobby. The hotel management, the guests, the young employees were all white – it was vanilla country!

Two people before me paid their bills with   credit cards. In those ancient times, credit card machines only accepted small transactions, about 50 dollars at most. Higher amounts had to be authorized by a phone call. For the people ahead of me things went without a glitch. The reception lady made the phone call and   gave them a receipt.

The lady at the reception started frowning as I  presented my credit card. She called for authorization for the amount charged and had a surprised look on her face when it was accepted.. Undaunted, she opened a little blue book. I knew what it was – it was a printed  list of stolen credit cards! My card was not in her book.  But wait, she was not done yet. She turned around and called the local police station to  find if my credit card was on their computerized updated list of stolen cards! Still not convinced, she excused herself and went inside, and I am guessing called the FBI and such for further enquiry. A roomful of people were staring at me and my family. What were they thinking? “Dirty Indian cheats at work again!” Who knows!

 I stood there blushing, angry, and helpless.

To cut a long story short,   my card was  finally accepted, and we left  without  leaving any major tip at the restaurant  inside  the hotel where we ate lunch. I  paid there in cash.

This incident was not funny!

To be fair, this happened a long time ago and if you visit Signal Mountain lodge today, which is still a beautiful resort, you will encounter nothing like this.

Student?

I was  on an interdepartmental committee, where we were evaluating  performance of numerous junior faculty.  One of them drew our attention. Professor Bozo (I intend to call him that),  fortunately not in our department, was seriously berated by his own colleagues, primarily for the  low quality of his research. We were in the process of submitting our final report.

Since I was still in my fitness era, I frequented the showers in the faculty locker room, where I met Professor Bozo through some common friends. Although not much of a researcher, Bozo maintained a strict exercise regimen.

One day at the end of the semester, after a strenuous racquetball game followed by a shower, I was slowly getting  dressed.  Bozo was  around, so he decided to chat.

“How is the end of the semester going for you?” he asked.

“Fine. I am getting  ready to give my exams” I said.

“How many exams are you going to take? Bozo asks

“Excuse me?” I said “I was talking about giving exams, not TAKING  them”

“That’s nice. You do both -  give exams and take exams. Lots of our teaching assistants do that”. Bozo was undaunted.

“I don’t take exams  any more” I said wryly at this point.

“Of course”, Bozo’s eyes lit up “ You finished all your courses and  you are writing your PH.D. thesis. That’s very nice.”

Well, at that point of time, I had finished my PH.D. thesis about fifteen years prior to that. I was about forty-five years old. And, I was physically in the faculty locker room where students were not allowed.

Hmmmmm.. .. How did I vote in the interdepartmental evaluation committee which met  about  three days after this incident?  I will not answer this question for fear of self-incrimination.

On reflection, I think Bozo may have had poor eyesight. He could only see the blurred outline of  my toned hard body (hahaha)  and assumed I was a  young foreign student.  Or  maybe he was gay and was trying to flatter me.

This was a little bit funny, a little bit insulting. But I had the last laugh, I guess!

So there you  have it! I will write of more of these little incidents in a few days.

Meanwhile,  it would take some time  before the old lady in India would stop comparing her maid to Michelle Obama, and the young woman in America would consider   socializing  with an alleged roofer!