Have you ever felt unfairly judged by another person?
Last edited Tue Dec 2, 2014, 05:03 PM - Edit history (1)
I have, at least once in my life.
It was years ago, at a summer job at a swimming pool. My boss there I still consider one of the worst human beings I've ever had to deal with in my entire life (and I usually like people and believe most people are good at heart). She was constantly attempting to make herself look like the "cool", "edgy" boss in front of her employees. You know, the whole, "I'm not your boss, I'm your buddy" schtick. But she had a seriously passive aggressive mean streak, and she had her favorite employees, and her not-so-favorite employees.
For whatever reason (I still to this day don't know why), I was one of her not-so-favorites. She would constantly criticize and nit pick everything I did. She would demand I enforce the most nonsensical rules at the pool. She once told me that my relationship with my then-girlfriend (now wife) was doomed to fail. Another time she told me that I was not smart enough to get a scholarship into graduate school (which I ultimately did). She accused me of omitting information on my job application (even though I had kept a hard copy of the application and was able to show her that I did not omit anything.) She scheduled me for long shifts on days that I had specifically asked off far in advance.
This grew worse and worse over the summer, until one morning when I arrived before my shift began. Except Boss Lady decided I wasn't sufficiently early enough, and she chewed me out and threatened to fire me if I wasn't sufficiently early for my shift again. It was the last straw, and I was sick of it. I was so upset and frustrated, but I didn't want to show it to her face to make me look bad, to let her know that she had gotten to me. So I went into the bathroom behind her office, went into a stall, and let out a scream. Just to get that frustration of having been abused emotionally and verbally off my chest.
I came back out feeling a little better. Except Boss Lady then came up to me and said she had heard me yell. And that she wondered if I was on drugs, because "that's how people on drugs act." And that was it. I had enough of her shit. I put in my notice of resignation that day.
So why am I posting this and dredging up old bad memories?
I'm posting this because I'm a white male, and what happened to me summers ago with that horrible boss at that pool was the exception, not the rule. But seeing how things went down in Ferguson last week, and how they've gone down for the decades before that, that this is how life is like for many African Americans in this country. They are constantly being put down, constantly being told they are less than, constantly being told they are failures. And when the last straw breaks and they dare get just a little out of line, those who have provoked and prejudged them can then jump up and say, "See! I told you so! They are violent!" And it's just such a frustrating, vicious cycle.
I had that feeling one day in my life. I can't even imagine having to wake up and feel that way day after day after day.
= new reply since forum marked as read
sh!t-stirring, borderline (possibly racist) trolling, stay ...
At 10:36a.m. (by the DU clock), you responded to DUer djean that you have a "bad habit of scanning text" and indicate that "Life and livelihood" (makes it) "a different animal altogether"; but, nearly a hour and a half hour later (11:58a.m.), you responded to my pointing out "life and livelihood" matters, i.e., Banking, Employment, Police contacts, ... after re-reading the OP that I have a "chip on (my) shoulder" and am "looking for a slight where there is none"?
What changed? 
But that said ... Yes, I do have banking anecdotes, (i.e., on a re-fi, being guided to a sub-prime loan, despite both my wife and I having 720+ FICO scores) ... Yes, in have job related anecdotes (e.g., having a client addressing my subordinate as if he was boss, despite the client having set an appointment with the boss ... me!) ... Yes, I have LEO encounter anecdotes (e.g., http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1187&pid=83940) ... each of these (and many, many more, going back generations) have led to the basis of my disaffection.
Now ... enjoy your stay! 
Give the guy a break here!
they can. They grind and dont let up...fuck the good of the country. They bashed Hillary w scandals for 30 years...created the Hillary Haters. It gets worse I think each presidential cycle. The last was Obama. He was particularly threatening to bigots because he was BLACK, and so smart, educated, articulate and scandle free...opposite of the bigots. He stirred up the bigots, just as Hillary and Warren stir up the sexists and misogynists.
These are not good people who play fair who we are fighting. We need to get prepared for that or they will continue to cheat and grind us down.
Caver TROLLS.
Last edited Mon Oct 5, 2015, 07:15 PM - Edit history (2)
Why I HATE going to Benihana :The most embarrassing thing for me ever was once going with a girl friend to a Benihana Restaurant in JAPANTOWN here in San Francisco. Benihana always takes groups of people and put them at the same dining table. Now it just so happened there was a family from South Carolina visiting Japantown and stopped in to try some of that fancy smanchy "Jap-OH-Neese" food. These people were very forward with everyone, and you would have thought We had sat down to their home dining table for dinner. The father checked out the chopped sticks and said..." No~ no~ No!! these won't do" (Meanwhile his 12 year old son had removed the chopsticks from the paper wrapper and were wearing them a-la walrus like up his nose...asking everyone to look at him. ) The Father refused to have chopsticks and demanded the wait staff bring him a knife, fork and spoon, because "WE'RE IN AMERICA and we eat the American way!!"
Since I was at their table, they kept asking me questions all through the meal about what every little thing was, and what it was. Fortunately my friend can read kanji so she was stuck with the task of explaining what soy sauce was, and how wasabi was similar to
Horse radish. The mother wanted me to teach her kids how to use the chop sticks which was totally a useless gesture and I hardly got the chance to eat my own food because Mia and I were stuck explaining every exhausting aspect about Japanese culture and how it was different from Chinese culture. ("What no Fortune cookies? Where are the dayam fortune cookies??."
And of course I had to sit and listen to the father Joke about how sushi was called bait where they came from, and they were not "touching the shit" (Yes, this was said in a public restaurant.) It was the most humiliating experience in my life, and I swore I would never go back to Benihana's if they paid me. The food there was good... ITS JUST I got tired of the daughter pulling her eyes back with her fingers and going "Look mamma, I am JAPO-KNEES"... AND having to explain why the beer wasn't Budweiser.
I know! 
because of my height and, to a lesser degree, my sexual identity.
I am a vertically challenged male (
) standing 5-foot-2 inches, and I always had to prove myself, especially while playing sports growing up. Opposing teams who never saw me play before always thought I wasn't very good, until I hit the ball past them or threw them out at first on a ball hit between second and short (I played second base).
Even as an adult, some think I am less of a man because of my height. In straight bars/clubs, some folks just stand there and ignore me, even when I say excuse me loudly to try to pass through a crowd. Then they look down at me, and I can tell they're thinking "I have to let this little runt go by" LOL
I am totally self-confident in myself and my appearance, but I still have to prove myself almost every day to some judgmental fool.
Apparently we are only meant to be computer programmers and savant artists.
Oh and you were a classmate of Mrs. Obama in law school? NO FUCKING WAY!!! 
in those days each incoming class was divided into four sections of about 145 students. I didn't know her but I knew who she was - she was hard to miss - tall, striking looking. My first boss in the legal profession was Jennifer Granholm. I was a first year working on the Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Law Review and she was a second year and the editor-in-chief. I was a lowly cite-checking grunt and occasional pre-reader of submitted articles. She was very nice.
I don't have any interpersonal "empathy" to speak of, can't read people worth a hoot and live strictly inside my own mind. Using the last phrase to a therapist was what allowed her to put the pieces together and diagnose me, which diagnosis has since been ratified by two other psychologists and a psychiatrist. There is a big difference between that kind of empathy and compassion, which is a different beast altogether.
