Four instances of discrimination in my life that I will never forget

The first incident was when my mother and I were going to looking to buy a new house. It was a Saturday of Sunday morning and we went to an open house in a nice neighborhood in Cincinnati. We looked around the house with the other people who came for the open house and everything was great, or so we thought. A few minutes later the real estate agent, who was showing the house, came out of nowhere, pulled us a side and asked my mother if she could even afford a house in this neighborhood. It turns out that my mom ended up buying a house in that same neighborhood that was even bigger and nicer, but she had a different real estate agent sell it to her, so the rude racist lady would not get the commission.

The second incident occurred when I was applying to go to Ohio University. OU went above and beyond on their end of things, so I have nothing bad to say about them, but that is more than I can say for my high school councilors and the bureaucracy that was the administration at my high school. I kept going to my councilor to get my transcipts sent and she kept messing up the paperwork and having excuses for why she couldn't send my information. I was also discouraged from even applying to OU , and I was told to go to a community college even though I had a high GPA and high ACT score. My councilor would also always have an attitude every time I went to see her and she would never know how to help me. Some of my friends, who were also black and some with higher GPA's and ACT scores than me got the same treatment. However, I talked to some white students who had the same councilor as I did and they had nothing but good things to say; the councilor was getting her job done like it was no problem and she was really pleasant and helpful to them. However, my friends and I overcame the odds and we are all at colleges.

These next instances happened to me about three weeks ago.

The third incident occurred when I was in a class looking at different newspaper layouts and the teacher was showing an award-winning layout that sparked positive dialog about race in Cincinnati after the Riots. this was just one of many slides and we could have just moved on to the next slip but on girl in the room had to raise her hand and say "I don't know why we have to talk about race anyway...there ain't but 5 of them (black people) on campus anyway...I just can't relate..." Everyone in the room looked at me to see what my reaction would be. However, at this point in my life nothing surprises me. I just looked at her and didn't say a word. I was not about to get loud and "ghetto" and prove the stereotypes right.

The fourth incident occurred when I was just stepping into on of my classes. I took my book bag off and went to sit down while still wearing a puffy down jacket (bubble coat). This girl, who things we are friends, turns to me and says you look like a "Marshmallow hoodlum." I guess I fit the stereotype of a young black male with a big coat. She probably has never seen a real "hoodlum" in her life. I didn't pay her any attention I just kept focusing on getting my textbooks out and what I had to do that day in class.

People often ask me, "why don't you correct these people who say these awful things?" I say that I don't correct them because one day someone else will... One day these people are going to make one of their racist/ignorant comments to the wrong person and they are going to get what is coming to them. One day these people might cross paths with a real "hoodlum," "thug"or "gangster" and they will quickly learn the error of their ways!

Has someone ever said anything discriminatory or racist towards you: Share your story. Is your philosophy on correcting people the same as mine?

My thoughts on the UCM community service

I really enjoyed the experience working with United Campus Ministries to put on this dinner/auction. I had never seen a live or silent auction before and now I have. I was there from noon to 9 p.m.. I helped carry some of the food and set up the auction and helped clean up. I liked working with different groups of volunteers and documenting this with photography. I also thought it was nice to see a rather large-scale event come together from start to finish. I was especially surprised to see a surplus of volunteers.

At some points UCM had so many people helping with this event that some people in STARS may have gotten bored or not have felt needed. But everyone who volunteered got to do something so every one's help was utilized and appreciated. I think STARS will definitely help UCM in the future.

STAR's Community Service Project

STARS 08/09: Antonio, Ashley, Don Jason, Ebony Porter, Sarah Williams, Stephanie (and few other members not in the picture)

STARS doesn't just sit around and talk about issues in society we like to roll up our sleeves and get involved in our community. For our community service project we volunteered for the United Campus Ministries auction and dinner at the Athens Community Center on Nov. 8 2008.


The UCM auction had two phases: the live auction at the end and the silent auction in the beginning.These next four pictures show some of the items that were up for auction in the first phase of the auction. Items included: trips, tea sets and board games, antique doll furniture and autographed basketballs.

This next photo shows the table where people would register to participate in the auction

At the event some of the entertainment was provided by "Calliope," a local feminist choir. STARS was responsible for moving the platform they were standing on after they got finished singing.

Here are people walking the silent auction and writing their bids on pieces of paper next to the items.

Before the auction STARS and other volunteers were responsible for putting all of the items to be auctioned in order by catalog number.

Here are the center pieces at the tables for the dinner. I, Don Jason, was partially responsible for putting them together. The consisted of a glass bowl with a tea-light candle in them and donated Squash and leaves.

Here I, Don Jason, am laying out the centerpieces.

Here is a close up of the colorful squash and leaves.

These next two pictures show that at one point in the dinner set up there were so many volunteers they ended standing around doing nothing and had to get sent home.

We had to stuff small mesh bags with candy. These bags acted as weight for the balloons.

Here I am trying the ribbon around one of the balloon.

Here is a UCM volunteer blowing up the balloons.

At the dinner Ed the caterer made a wonderful meal. He called it Appalachian and International all at the same time. There was salad with some organic sunflower sauce. Noodles with vegetables, Tofu and potatoes in a squash and vegetable stew and tenderly seasoned chicken with vegetables.

The appetizers were cheese and humus spreads with crackers.

For appetizers there were also some grape leaf, sea-weed looking wraps.I was not brave enough to try one.

STARS was put on cake duty. we had to cut the cake and put the cake pieces on plates. We could hardly keep up with the rush, people kept taking two and three pieces of cake.

At the end of the dinner their was a live auction and here is one of the auctioneers. They were pointing at people and talking so fast.

UCM raised over $2,000 with the silent auction. I don't know the exact number for the live auction but I know it beats the Silent auction by a land-slide. One item in the Live auction, three-homemade pies went for $525.

Feel free to comment on my pictures: Have you ever been to a auction for charity before, or an auction in general?

Links to three other Blogs on discrimination

For this post I tried to find links to other blogs that deal with topics that fall under the umbrella of discrimination. I also tried to find blogs that are up-to-date or have at the very least been updated in 2008.

A blog called "India: A billion aspirations Perspectives on South Asian politics," talks about the difficulties people in India face living under the caste system. The blog also talks about how the caste system/culturally enforced discrimination has affected the politics of the country. Now the country wants to uses a quota system to help certain tribes and castes, who have traditionally been underrepresented in the government and universities, claim higher roles in society.

Here is the link:
http://blogs.reuters.com/india/tag/discrimination/

A blog called "The Age Discrimination (Is Real) Blog," follows a man named from Bellingham, Washington. At one point Ron had a distinguished career, where he held senior positions in financial services companies. He used to manage big budgets, manage many people, and was always top performer. However, Ron's company closed down in 2004 and since he is 60 years old he has had trouble finding a job. He writes this blog to tell of the blatant age discrimination he has undergone.

Here is the link:
http://agediscriminationblog.com/

A blog called "The SheEO Blog,"follows Fiona Smith's experience with being a female in the workplace. She is a writer for the Australian Financial Review. Smith talks about how it is okay for me to show emotion in the workplace but women are expected to show no emotion. Emotion in a man makes him seem "authentic" or passionate" while the same emotion in a women is seen as a weakness. This blog shows that gender discrimination is not just a phenomenon in corporate America it is a world-wide issue.

Here is the link:
http://www.thesheeoblog.com/sexual_discrimination/

Share comments, I felt the blog about age discrimination was the most powerful:Which of these three blogs speaks to you the most?

Weight discrimination in the Workplace and in general

Weight discrimination is growing in America and it is almost as prevalent as racial discrimination, especially against women. This form of discrimination puts people who are over-weight at a disadvantage in the work place and socially. In this article by USAToday says that this form of discrimination has risen 66% over the past decade. The article also says that 28% of obese men and 45% obese women report being discriminated against. However the biggest concern I found in the article was that in the workplace many people are told if they they don't lose wait they will lose their job.

Here is the Link to the USAToday article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2008-05-20-overweight-bias_N.htm

This idea of Lose weight or Lose your job continues with a CNN money report. The company is Lincoln Industries, and all the employees are all physically fit says CEO Marc LeBaron. Lincoln industries has a new health program where the employees are given a discount on health insurance when they exercise or quit cigarettes. It is said that the program is not mandatory, however it has 100% participation. Apparently, 46% of companies offer a similar plan.

Workers do have rights the article says, HIPAA requires that incentives be available to all employees and be limited to less than 20% of a worker's coverage. Plus, 31 states have "lifestyle statutes" that prohibit businesses from discriminating against their employees for off site activities such as smoking.

In my opinion, these "health programs" are just another way for employers to now everything about their employee's medical information. While I agree that exercising and not smoking, etc. are good health choices; they are just that, choices. No company should force you to do all this extra work outside of what your are required to do for your job. Making someone go to the gym in their free time or spend more money at the grocery store to buy specialized foods is a little overboard. Now if the employer wanted to include work-out time and health seminars in the eight hour workday I would be okay with this. The Business world in American has done great without these programs so I don't feel that they are not necessary now.

Here is the article:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/30/smallbusiness/lose_weight.fsb/index.htm

Where does it end...with companies knowing so much about their employee's health and medical issues? Could Genetic Discrimination be next? A government Web site opens up the discussion by saying that many are concerned that genetic information may be used by insurers to deny, limit or cancel health insurance, and by employers to discriminate in the workplace. Employers could hire certain people for certain jobs based solely on genetics.

I believe companies would use this genetic/medical information to discriminate. Imagine a person who is too genetically/medically unfit to get hired and also to medically genetically unfit to qualify for health insurance...So this person can't get health insurance and when they want to work to pay their health expenses out-of-pocket, they can't do that either because no employer will have them...What do we say to people like that?

Some diseases are passed down from people's parents and the person has no control over them. No amount of healthy eating or exercise can ward off some diseases. Do these people deserve to be penalized with no job and no health coverage?

Here is the link to the government Website on genetic discrimination:
http://www.genome.gov/10002077

A blog from slate called The Puzzling Consensus in Favor of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act tries to defend disclosure of employee's genetic information. It also defends disclosure of genetic information to insurance companies. The blog makes the point that if the insurance company's had genetic information on their customers more people would get insurance and insurance would cost less for all. Here is the link: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/archive/2008/05/04/the-puzzling-consensus-in-favor-of-the-genetic-information-nondiscrimination-act.aspx


What do you think: Should companies be allowed to use employee's health information in hiring decisions or in dictating employee's free-time activities?

How do I get these topics to Blog about?

Every STARS meeting we talk about a new topic related to discrimination in society. Once we exhaust timely topics in the media we do an exercise where everyone takes a piece of paper and writes down topics that we are interested about anonymously and then we plan to discuss them at future meetings.

I try to make it to as many meetings as I can and then I take the topics and run with them on my own, however I do try to include other opinions from the group as much as possible.

Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Age discrimination is a growing concern in American. "Job seekers are reporting age discrimination beginning as early as the mid-thirties. By the time you reach your forties, you can be considered washed up in some industries. There are strategies you can use to help mitigate discrimination issues." (Alison Doyle, About.com)

People have misconceptions about older workers. Many employers may feel that older workers will want a higher salary or will be less likely to pick up on new technology. This is not always true.

For interview and resume' tips you can used to avoid workplace Age discrimination click this link. There is also concise information about age discrimination laws:http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/careerresources/a/agediscriminat.htm

Some of the tips include:

• "On your resume limit your experience to 15 years for a managerial job, 10 years for a technical job, and 5 years for a high-tech job
  
• Leave your other experience off your resume or list it without dates in an Other Experience category
  
• Consider using a functional resume rather than a chronological resume"(Allison Doyle, About.com)

John Stossel from ABC news has a different perspective on Age Discrimination in the workplace. He expresses it in one of his "Give me a break" segments. He basically calls laws that protect older workers bad for companies because they stifle innovation and "creative destruction," a process that companies go through, where they tear down the workforce and build it up with new people. He uses the example of three radio personalities that were abruptly fired and replaced with younger people who better fit with the company's new image.

Click this Link for a video done by ABC News about Age discrimination in the workplace:

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5

Here is the link to the employment laws reffered to in the article and above video link:

http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/discrimination/agedisc.htm

What do you think: Should companies be able to fire someone who is doing their job perfectly well just because they are getting older?