The Personal side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

Throughout my life, I have been very conscious of my race and ethnicity. I became more aware it of when I left Sri Lanka to venture out into what I found to be an extremely diverse world. I immediately became aware of the physical differences among myself and those I came into contact with especially in Europe where I came into contact with predominantly white populations. I recall one incident in particular when I felt my race was brought to attention and that I was being treated indifferently because of my race. My husband and I had been visiting my parents in Austria and were on a flight to the United States when we our flight was routed back to Austria due to some mechanical difficulties with the aircraft. As a result many of the passengers including us, missed their connecting flights. Passengers were frustrated at the inconvenience and eager to be on their way while airline workers were becoming frustrated trying to accommodate the needs of a large number of passengers and answering an endless stream of questions. My husband and I knew something was not quite right about our new flight arrangements and approached an Austrian airline worker about our concerns. She responded in exasperation “Oh! You people…..!” We were shocked and offended by her response. We immediately became conscious of the fact that she was implying that we were being troublesome and that the ‘troublesome behavior’ was somehow connected to our race. We were merely concerned like every other passenger about being able to reach our destination safely. She was clearly racially biased and it manifested itself in how she was treating individual passengers.  

This particular incident and events following it clearly showed that the airline worker was biased towards particular groups of people. This was evident in her level of responsiveness towards individual passengers; being more attentive and responsive to some more than others which resulted in a diminished sense of equity for some passengers such as myself and my husband who were left wondering whether the reason no one was making the effort to address our issues was because we were Asian. I think if the airline worker was open to accepting all passengers regardless of where they are from and what they look like and prioritized and responded to the needs of all passengers equally, this situation would have been more equitable for all.