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In reply to the discussion: White DUers: Tell Your Stories [View all]3catwoman3
(23,812 posts)Before I relate it, in the interest of full disclosure, I am of Celtic/English/German heritage and have never been discriminated against because of my color (or, more accurately, lack thereof).
In the summer of 1981, I spent 2 weeks in the then-Soviet Union, on a tour designed to look at health care there, with the particular focus of seeing whether there was anything comparable to the nurse practitioner role in the US. (There wasn't.)
We went to 5 different cities, and were treated very cordially everywhere.
Different story on the Aeroflot flight home. There was no first class cabin closed off with curtains, because the USSR was a "classless society," right? Not exactly. There may not have been a first class cabin, but there were certainly people in the first 6 rows who were held in much higher esteem, by the flight attendants, than the rest of us the the remaining rows. Before the plane even began to taxi, the cabin crew began waiting hand and foot on the passengers in those first 6 rows - wine and cognac in crystal goblets, cheese and fresh fruit on china plates, linen napkins. This service continued well into the flight after we were wheels up. Everything looked delicious.
Eventually, those of us not seated in the privileged first rows were given scanty box lunches, and water in brown paper cups that were not waxed, so got soggy very quickly. The very solicitous service up front continued throughout the flight, in full view of those of us who were regarded as lesser beings. Everyone on the plane was Caucasian - no distinguishing physical characteristics.
What was enlightening about this experience in being treated differently was how quickly I found myself feeling resentful and angry. The flight only lasted a few hours. How resentful would I be, I asked myself, if I were always treated this way, based on some obvious physical characteristic that was the result of which fertilized egg my soul happened to land in. Damned resentful, I am sure.
My skin color is strictly an accident of birth - a random genetic occurrence. I take no pride in it, but have been grateful for it, as I know it has made my life easier in ways too numerous to count.
A related note. I am a pediatric nurse practitioner, and have been for almost 42 years. There are a few families in our practice who refuse to let me care for their children. Most of them have never even met me, so have not had a negative experience with me, but have determined, because I don't have the MD initials after my name, that I am inferior. I have been a nurse practitioner longer than any of my employer have been doctors. Interesting. And insulting.
I know this response is slightly off-topic, but it is as close as I can come to relate an experience of being treated differently.