Richard and Me

"I worked hard...I was not learning anything and nobody was volunteering to help me...I asked Morrie one day to tell me about the work. He grew red.
'Whut yuh tryin' t' do, nigger, git smart?' he asked.
'Naw...,' I said.
'Well, don't, if yuh know whut's good for yuh!'
I went to Pease.
'Say, are you crazy, you black bastard?'...'Nigger, you think you're white, don't you?'...
'This is a white man's work around here, and you better watch yourself!'"(The Ethics of Living Jim Crow xv).

In this passage, Richard experienced discriminaton because he had a characteristic that his boss did not like; he was black. Since he was black, in his boss' opinion he was lucky to have had a job where white folk were involved. Richard realized that white people had a lot of resources and hoped that he would receive a glimpse into the work they do and maybe gain a few pointers. The whites weren't thinking that this information could make Richard a better worker. They only thought of the fact that they were educating a Negro and, in effect, he was making the Negro smarter and closer to the white man.

Similarly, I was judged unfairly when determining who was to go first in my group. The length of my hair could not determine how smart I was. It is like trying to find something that doesn't really label me disabled for the position but it's used to exclude me from a higher position. In Richard's case, when he asked to learn, Pease said 'Nigger, you think you're white, don't you?', rather than accepting that Richard would have liked to learn something from the job. Richard was frustrated as was I, he said 'I worked hard...I was not learning anything and nobody was volunteering to help me' and the white men left him with their final thought, 'This is a white man's work around here, and you better watch yourself!'.

Contrastingly though, I was allowed to participate in my group activity while Richard was completely excluded from the learning experience and he was forced to leave his job. The procedures back then were much harsher than those in recent times. Because the racism is more subtle, people often miss it or think that it doesn't exist because it's not out right in their faces.