Victims of Prejudice
It happened last week, when I was going to lunch with several other coworkers. We were inside the elevator, when it stopped just one floor below ours. There, a tall foreigner entered the elevator, carrying with him a large brown box and a bag. The tall guy is a Caucasian, well groomed, and good looking.
Since the floor belongs to a well-known international mining company, we are used to seeing foreigners in and around our office building nowadays, where it was a rare sight just a couple of months ago. Perhaps it will soon be a rare sight again, since it looks like they’re moving, judging from the look of things.
I noticed that the box the tall guy was carrying has a large printed label on the side, with what looked like his name also printed upon it. I know that foreigners usually did that when they are moving, so they could easily sort out their personal belongings.
What surprised me the most is when one of my coworkers, that was with me inside the elevator at the time, made a comment which to me sounded a bit racist. Basically, what he said was, that even though the tall guy is a white guy, he is only a technician. The problem is, he said it with a derogatory tone in his voice.
Why did my coworker said that? To make it easy to understand, it helps to know that the company we are working on is a service-type company which sells specific business communication solution to corporate customers.
Usually, our technician carries around a box with spare parts for our customers’ maintenance needs, which have the same color, just like the one that the tall guy is carrying. If only my friend would notice, that the box out technician carries have our company name and logo, and not their own names, imprinted on it.
Just by that box alone, my friend assumed that the guy was a technician, a white guy technician, even. There is nothing wrong being a technician, but perhaps somehow it boosted my coworkers self esteem, but at what expense?
But the world we are living, surely is not perfect. That much we know. One thing I did learn from this experience. I wish next time I won’t be so easy to judge a person’s worth, just by his looks or appearance alone. That way perhaps I can learn to make the world a little better, by making myself to be a better person too.
