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Happy holi everyone!
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Bowl Leader
At my first job in Market Research, a white, British contractor we were working with was traveling to India, Hong Kong, Colombia and South Africa for a study. In the Kick Off call, he mentions he’s excited for every country except India. “Don’t get me wrong, I love yoga and Indian food, but Indian people are dirty. They have no sense of personal space.” He said a few other problematic things but this statement took the cake. I was the only Indian person in the office, nevermind the project. I was upset and raised the flag - they asked me to set up time with him so he could apologize and he LAUGHED on the phone call. I called him out for not apologizing, management was happy. They asked me what I would like as a next step, I said to not work with him and kindly request the company reevaluate their partnership due to his racist proclivities. THAT set them off! How dare I call this man racist? Sure, what he said fell in the “racial realm” but it wasn’t racist. HR says they can’t say it’s racist because they weren’t on the phone call. The managing director on my team called me “hostile” and said, “White people experience racism more than colored people.” I was shocked... she said we had “a difference in opinions.” The Account Director says he can’t call the guy racist because, “He’s my friend.” The COO put time on my calendar and told me to “focus on my work [blatant mispronunciation of my name] because[ I am ]causing a disruption to work and am selfish and overreacting.” When I asked if the quality of my work decreased, she said not that she knew of, but that I was causing distress by calling a contractor racist. The company is conveniently posting about DEI now :)
This is what angers me so much. Stories like this. A black person would’ve had so much money waved at them by now.
Damn you guys have worked at some shitty places, sorry to hear that — maybe it’s because I look more racially ambiguous (half the people I meet think I’m black, for whatever reason), but I haven’t experienced much anti-desi behavior at all. I wish there were more people that looked like me, but no one has been outwardly antagonistic towards me (yet)