The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The memory that I will share involving bias, prejudice and/or oppression will be a story that I was told by mother.  My mother was working as a consultant providing home training services to parents who needed additional strategies to help their children at home and school. My mother made contact with a woman regarding her son over the phone. My mother informed her of who she was and what she would be coming to the home to do. When my mother arrived at the home she introduced herself as Dr. Johnson and asked to come into the home. The mother looked at my mother as if she was surprised to see her and that my mother was not the person she was expecting to see. While my mother was at the home providing information to the mother the father arrived home. The mother and father then began having a conversation in the other room and then the mother came out and said they would not be needed the home services. The next day the mother called back to the office and requested services again asking would the person coming out be white or black. A white person was sent out to the home and the mother accepted the home services. 

I believe this incident diminishes equity as I feel the mother and father were saying that a black person was not capable of providing services to the family because they were black. My mother has worked very hard to obtain her doctorate and was more qualified to provide the services but was denied the opportunity to help the child and their family just because of the color of her skin.

The feelings that this incident brings up for me are anger and frustration. I am upset that my mother was treated in this manner but I am also upset that a parent would turn down services that could benefit their child because of the race of the person trying to assist them.

The people that would need to change in this incident would be the mother and father as well as the company that my mother was working for at the time. Once the company found out that the parents were requesting a different consultant of a specific race they should have informed that parents that they would not be sending another person if race was the only reason to request another person in their home. I feel the parents were being told that it is okay to discriminate by the company when their request was granted.