Let's be clear about the effect of the racism directed against President Obama and his family

[JoePhilly]

66. What ... from reading your posts on other topics ... I thought you were White like me!!!!

(kidding ... kidding !!!!!!!! ... please don't kill me) ... hope I made you laugh. That was my intent.

Here's another example of the failed "You are just like me" assumption ... this one on gender lines.

I was working for a company about 20 years ago when this happened ... but I never forgot this ... and it also shaped me going forward.

The company was/is still a fortune 500, and at the time, I'm working in a 8 story building just outside DC. Every one is a "professional". Men in nice suits, women in "serious" business suits, usually tailored skirts, rarely bright colors, no simple dresses, rarely slacks, but sometimes slacks. The roles, and the business uniform, are tightly defined.

I'm fresh out of graduate school. I was a lower middle class kid who had "made it" ... I'm in the "professional world" now, very excited. The building is very new. The bathrooms are amazing. And my office ... if you've seen the movie "Working Girl", at the end, the office that Melanie Griffith gets ... big office, up high in the building, big window with a great view ... that's kind of office I had.

I'm on my BEST behavior because I'm a little scared. Sure, I've got an MA, and a PhD ... but I still worry that these people are WAY better than me. I've never been in an environment with "professionals" like these, people who wear suits everyday. And I'm worried that at some point, they will figure out that I'm really just a poor kid from Philly, and they'll send me home!

So one day ... I get on the elevator. There are 2 people on that elevator. A man and a woman. Both dressed perfectly for this environment. I get on. No one is speaking. From my perspective, we are three strangers. We work for the same company, but we do not know each other. And so we stand there, quiet, well dressed, and professional.

The elevator stops ... and the woman (who was attractive) gets off the elevator. The doors close. And that's when they other guy stop being professional. He turns to me and says ... "Did you see the ass on that!!??!!" And he goes on, and on.

I was blown away. Here I was working hard in this environment, trying to be "professional" at all times ... I mean ... sure even if I thought that woman was attractive (I was single at the time) ... but I was never going to scream that out loud to anyone, especially some one I did not know.

He assumed I was thinking like him. He was lucky, I could have been from HR working in an EO role ... he'd have been in trouble then.

The elevator stopped again, and he got off. It took me a while to figure out that I should have said something to him.

But that event taught me that "professionals" are just as likely to be bigots, racists, and sexists as any other group.

It helped me see that those who "look like me" may think very differently, and some times in a bad way.