Living in White world

I have been in United States for 15 years. I used to hear about discrimination in America, but never really experienced it until now. My husband and I just moved to a posh area in California near beach. Before we lived in a mixed neighborhood where everyone was friendly. I am in a complete white location. IN mall, streets, movie theaters, and eating places, all you see is rich white people. I had heard about suttle discrimination, but now I am experiencing it. We first Faced the problem when we were looking for a place to live. On the phone, agents seem to have the property to show us, but after seeing us in person, the whole thing would change. Typical response we got was ," Oh I apologize, only if you had come sooner." I would say ," but you told me yesterday on the phone you had severaly places to show us?" Then their response was ," Oh that was mistake in my part, I thought there were." First I thought it was just a coincident, but it happened to us a lot.

And my brother in law who has a Phd in Bio chemical engineering, faced discrimination at work. He was with his company for 12 years. There was no one else with his qualifications in his company. His Director retired and Director's job came up in his company, so he applied for the position. He knew he had to get the job because senority and education counts in his company. His company waited for 2 years. They kept telling him that his application was in the process. His best friend in his company then told him that they had a problem with his background and other people didn't want to work under an Indian. He actually had to go through the Court to get that job. He used to tell us that people working under him gave him a lot of problems, but now they have accepted him.

Last week I went to mall in the rich neighbourhood. First of all guys, all the women were dressed up like a models. I didn't see anyone wearing jeans. They all wore dresses and hair were set perfectly. Anyways, I go to this one store and started looking for shirt for my husband. All of sudden this one eldery gentlemen started to follow me. He wore the store tag and he asked me ," can I help you with something." I was like ," NO thanks, I am just looking at shirts." He said ," what's your price range?" NO one had ever asked me this question before. Hell, it's just a mall. I told him ," you can't look here without giving you an estimate?" I just walked out of there and went to Nordstorms. I picked up a shirt and started looking for a matching tie. All of a sudden, this lady came out of no where and said," can I help you?" I was like "no thanks I am fine." That's normal everyone asks that, but she didn't leave me alone. She stood there looking at me while I looked for a tie. I asked her, "is there something wrong?" She stated "No, I am just here if you need me."

I wondered to myself I was wearing nice formal black pants with soft pink blouse with matching sandles. So I looked allright, what went wrong. I was the same person, only I changed location.

I think there is an imaginary line of glass ceiling in America. If you working at a level where they don't care about your little achievements, everything is fine and dandy. But it's when you hit that glass ceiling and then...problems start to emerge.

well...i felt really said after i finishd reading it.... 😕 😳 Ya it does happen in some countries...if u live in america /U.k etc....ny europe country especially..den ppl do give dat 'weird' luk 2 sum1 who's nt frm among demselves...or who r frm India/Pak........!! its nt da prob only wid Indianz...discrimination is also dere 4 Pakistani's......! i've heard a lot abt those ppl who go frm Pakistan and try 2 job n settle theere in U.k /USA etc....! dey jst dnt get 2 do sum standard jobs or those ones which dey r capable of!!! y it so?? mayb becuz Those british/americans ....jst dnt wnt ny foreign person to b ahead of dem in ny field!!! dats y dey gve dem low levels job.....of jst try 2 ignore dem....!! it hurts u knw...i mean wats da point in doing dis?wat have we done huh ?y shd we suffer only becuz wern't americans/.....Britishers??..is dat so ???it is becuz we Do have our own identity so dat we jst dnt need to follow others or we dnt have to do their'Ghulami'(wats ENG. wrd 4 it?) nymore!!!!???
People just 4get 1 basic thing while doing all dis..-------First of all....WE all r *Humanz*!!!we rnt at all bybirth been divided into different races/religions..........!! human is born at first..religion is determiend aftr it!!! Indianz/pakistanis/russians..americanz..........!!! ---all dis cumz aftr dis...1st of all we r Humanz only!!! 😳

wow...Thanks for sharing your stories with us DF. I agree, subtle racism does exist.

There was one incident where my parents went to a bank and were waiting in line for it to open. There were two old ladies waiting as well (one was in front of them and one was behind). These two females kept on making racist comments about immigrants coming into Canada and leeching out money from there, ets.

My parents ignored them at first. Once the doors opened, everyone was let in. The lady behind my parents tried to cut in front of them. So, my Dad said, "Excuse me, but we were before you in line."

This female mutters, "F🤬 you!" My Dad asked her "what did you say?"

She repeats herself. Loudly. My father shouts out "YOU ARE RACIST!" The female was so shocked, she could not say a word.

He ticked her off in front of everyone and said that he knew she was making racist comments and would not tolerate it. He knew his rights, he was also a citizen of this country. etc.

But, then again, there was another case of reverse racism that I witnessed:

A Sri Lanki guy was walking on the footpath and he shoved aside a White guy who was walking on his own, minding his own business for no reason whatsoever. The poor gora looked so confused, i felt sorry for him.

Thanks DF, for sharing your experience. Racism or whatever you call it still exists in Western World. They simply can't see people who they lord over, standing on their own, with their heads high. LN Mittal's case is a recent example, kudos to Mittal for each those gora a lesson.

Thx DF for sharing your experience !! It sounds shocking !! I've not lived in the U.S for ages but in the 3+ years i have not experienced any racism (touch wood).

Recently when i was doing my grocery in Kroger and my dad had come along. I finished my grocery and couldn't find me dad, so i started searching for him. I kept walking up and down the aisles looking confused, irritated and lost since i couldn't find my dad. When i finally found my dad i had a Kroger customer service Manager walk up to me and pleasantly commented "if i found who i was looking for". I realised i was being observed and watched while i had been pacing the store. Although i did not take offense to it , knowing that i had looked terribly lost. So giving the benifit of the doubt. But i was kinda wondering if this was subtle racism or just "ME" being touchy !!😳

Wow DF thanx for sharing your experience with us.
I have only had two accounts of racism that i can remember and both were with my parents. My parents wanted to buy a house and they went to look at the place and the owners of the place agreed to sell the house to my parents. We filed the necessary papers with the bank but after a while the people refused to sell to us even though all our papers were in order, everything was legal, we had enough money, and my dad's credit is beyond awesome but they refused to sell the house to my parents simply because we're desi. These people had been sued before also by a desi woman who was going to pay for the house in cash, so we know she was rich, and they refused to sell to her. she took them to court and she won because they had no reason not to sell to her, but my parents decided not to pursue the matter in court. Another time was also when my mom was looking for another house and she called this woman and my mom has a desi accent so the woman asked her if she was asian and my said yes and the woman is like "i am sorry i cant sell to you because i do have to live in this community and they will be really mad if i sell to someone of another race" so i was simply floored that someone wud admit something like that. I admit that subtle racism exists and so does really obvious one but i have never seen anyone accept it, because when someone accepts it they're kinda saying that its okay that they're racist and they're not ashamed of it.

thanks DF for sharing ur story, my neighborhood is pretty much an rich white neighborhood too, we have never troubled anyone, or done anything to hurt anyone, but it seems that our house is looked down upon as well since we're hindu/indian. When i was in 10th grade we had our house tepeed (kids took toilet paper and threw it all over our house} and then spray painted embarrassing and racist words on our house (like F*** You arab and other really mean things). Like i mentioned above we lived in a a really good neighborhood so we never expected this sort of vandalism. You cant imagine how humiliating it was to read the words and take the toilet paper off of our house.

Another instance was when we were in our car (my mother has a mercedes suv) and we stopped at a stop light, and the cops pulled us over and started checking our tags and stuff. My mom was driving at the exact speed limit and was also wearing her seat belt and was following the law but was still pulled over. When she asked what was wrong and why he pulled her over he started stammering and said there was a report of a stolen car or something like that in the area. He even asked her if he could search the car but since lawfully he cant unless my mother agreed he couldnt and had to let us go.

I even go to a private school and since all of the students are white and drive really expensive cars they look down upon anyone different than them. And who can blame them either? Their views most likely are a result of what their parents think about different races...

People think that racism is something that the poor and uneducated do, but it exists more in upper middle class and up than it does anywhere else.

Originally posted by: Dazlingflower

I think there is an imaginary line of glass ceiling in America. If you working at a level where they don't care about your little achievements, everything is fine and dandy. But it's when you hit that glass ceiling and then...problems start to emerge.

👏 very well said. It sums up all. To be frank, i think this is the case in any part of the world.

i felt bad after reading it. but i personally never have experienced it. i mean i know things like that go on, but never to me.

i felt bad reading it....i've lived in the US all my life, but i've never heard of any of this racism....i've never seen or experienced it 😕