The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

 The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

What memory do you have of an incident when you experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression?

A recent news story focused on the events of professional sports members being harassed by other team mates. The victims were ridiculed, called racial slurs, homophobic language although no one was reportedly gay, one was even subjected to sexual explicit comments made about female members of his family. The overall tone of the comments were demeaning toward the victims as professionals and human beings. The victims were not very forthcoming about the abuse, because they feared retaliation from others on the team, including coaches.

In what way(s) did the specific bias, prejudice and/or oppression in that incident diminish equity?

In the workplace there should be a reasonable expectation to be protected from harassment by coworkers. Workplace policies should include procedures to report harassment of any type; racial, sexually, ableism, or ageism. The persons involved felt invalidated with the constant harassment. The lives of these individuals was horribly disrespected. They felt they had no choice but to accept the abuse and even tried to fit in hoping it would reduce the attacks, but to no avail. This behavior is one common to victims of abuse (Report to the commissioner of the national football league, 2014).

The player was treated in a manner that caused him feelings of inadequacy and shame. He is not what they describe your ordinary athlete because he likes to read. The player was subjected to continuous threats, sexually explicit comments directed at female members of his family, and racial slurs. The player had severe enough reactions to the taunts, comments and degrading comments toward female family members that he checked into a hospital for psychological evaluation.

What feelings did this incident bring up for you?

My feelings in regard to this incident include, shock and disbelief that there are people willing participating in behaviors that are insensitive, cruel, and degrading toward another member of the human race. I know that males have a different manner of interaction within sports environments, but the type of comments and behaviors directed at this person and other members of the team were inexcusable. There is line that should not be crossed, and when a person indicates they are uncomfortable with any type of joking it should be discontinued.

What and/or who would have to change in order to turn this incident into an opportunity for greater equity?

Although these individuals are grown men, there is no reason they should have endured this type of treatment, even in a sport environment, where there is often a different set of rules that where name calling, profanity, and sometimes physical altercations are not uncommon. Some of the behaviors were way out of line, even for professional athletes. No one knows how often these type of incidents occur and are disregarded, even by people in charge, maybe this will bring to light the seriousness of the issue of invalidating another human being’s existence and treating them like a joke.

While there are policies in place that lay out the rules for workplace behaviors and consequences for misconduct it is evident the rules were not adhered to by some of the team.

References:

Report to the commissioner of the national football league. (2014, Febraury 14). Retrieved from http://63bba9dfdf9675bf3f10-68be460ce43dd2a60dd64ca5eca4ae1d.r37.cf1.rackcdn.com/PaulWeissReport.pdf