When I was in second grade, I attended a very ritzy private school. My mom was a teacher there, so my tuition was free.
One of my classmates held a birthday party at her parents’ country club, and all the children in the class were invited except me. My mother was Jewish, and the country club did not allow Jews to enter the hallowed place. Even little bitty half-Jews like me were apparently viewed as a threat.
Not taking nothing from no one, give them hell long as I’m breathing… keep kicking ass in the morning and taking names in the evening.
If we do this long enough, we’ll probably get spanked for that whole “copyright” thing.
I wonder if that leaves you with a taste as sour as vinegar in your mouth?
It’s for the best 'cause they’re probably sick of us now.
Oh, you just look so ridiculous now.
Okay, for real, I’m out. Hehehe.
I’m sorry.
Aw, I never meant to hurt you!
You’re not… crying… are you?
Seriously though, I need to go clean out my closet now. It’s been real. 
Ha!
Once when I was very young the Ku Klux Klan vandalized my dad’s car and proclaimed that we (my family) were “Papists.” I think this was probably more common long long ago but at that time it was rare for the KKK to go back to it’s roots of hating everyone, they typically just spread hate propaganda about blacks and Jews. My dad didn’t take too kindly to the situation.
Once when I was in HS I tried to buy rolling paper from a tobacco store and the proprietor refused saying, “I’m not selling no hippy stuff to make joints with.” I was legitimately buying it for an uncle that was visiting us and he was legitimately in the practice of rolling his own cigarettes, and asked me to pick some up for him while I was out.
I was in Spain on business with the Army in 1986 and I was “intimidated” several time by Spaniards who were ascribing to a growing belief that NATO was trying to “enslave” Spain and that the CIA was doing all kinds of crazy things. The worst of it came one day while I was heading into the U.S. Embassy in full dress uniform (not trying to make a statement, that was 1) my uniform that I was supposed to wear in that situation, and 2) the only nice clothes I really had with me or even had at all) and caught a big rotten tomato on the back.
Black male.
I can vouch for overzealous security guards following me around stores, being passed over in low level jobs for hiring, or pulled over in racial profiles and stopped on the street by the Red Dog Unit just walking home because I supposedly fit someone’s description for some bullshit-- but more memorable to me are the times I’ve been picked on by white guys just for being black.
First time was when i was five, at a Catholic school, one of only a few black kids. This one kid, Jerry, kept fucking with me, calling me a “black monkey” until I got tired of it and bloodied his nose with one punch at recess when the nuns weren’t around.
When I was 14, when we recently moved into a new home after disasterous flooding hit the Flint, Michigan area, I was accosted by three white guys when I was walking my baby brother home. They had taunted me on my way to my brother’s bus stop about not wanting niggers in their neighborhood (First time I was ever called a nigger) and now were waiting for me on our way back. I took on the biggest guy in the group, thinking if I could take him his boys would back off – and got. my. ass. handed to me. We were rolling around in the street and he was about to have me pinned when I did the one thing I was taught never to do, and I started fighting dirty: I bit down hard on his hand between his thumb and index finger until I drew blood. That took the fight out of him and ended things. I spit out his blood and walked off. Then my mom ran me to the hospital crying because she thought I had AIDS. (Ah, the mid-80s.)
When I was 18, I was out riding my bike at a crossroads near my home in Atlanta when some white boys in a jeep pulled up alongside me… one of them yelled, “Catch, nigger!” and threw a vintage Coke bottle at my head, knocking me down in the middle of the tracks. They drove off laughing and screaming, “Fucking nigger!” I wanted to grab a handful of rocks, jump up and ran after them as fast as I could and beat them basically blue… but I just laid there and cried, I was so fucking hurt and surprised and mad at myself and frustrated.
A simliar thing happened to me in college while I was bike riding on a country road in South Carolina and some David Duke looking white guy almost ran me into a ditch and we almost got into a fight.
Fortunately that was about the last time I had anything remotely racial happen to me, aside from rude store clerks following me around.
In a somewhat similar story to Askia’s I knew a gay guy who was known by the local high school community as gay who had a full sprite can thrown directly into his face by a dipshit high school student.
Someday I’ll write a Pit thread about realtors in general, but basically there are quite a few in Tokyo (including Century 21) that are very open about the fact that they don’t want foreigners in their offices and are not going to show them any apartments. Oddly, this was just for renting; when the wife and I were looking to buy a place, we got nothing but fawning affection that bordered on open begging.
Of course, discrimination has worked in my favor on many occasions, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Oh, and even though it was probably just an honest mistake on the part of that one museum staff member, she left a permanently bad impression of the Children’s Museum in Boston etched in my psyche. She yanked me out of a play area and started scolding, “you’re not supposed to be in there!” It wasn’t until much later that I realized that she assumed I was older than everyone else (the play area was for 6 and under, and although I was 6, I was as tall as a 10-year-old).
One of my younger brothers got a lot of that growing up. He’s 6’8" now which is obviously very tall but he actually hit his growth spurt early and attained most of that height before his sophomore year in HS.
First day of IIRC 4th grade the teacher thought he was one of the students’ older brothers there showing them to the classroom.
I once didn’t get a job because I’m female. It was a hotel desk clerk and the manager didn’t think a girl should be around his customers. I’d dearly like to tell him that I’d be a better judge of that, but he’s from a different culture and probably really thought he was just looking out for me.
I’m fairly sure I didn’t get in to a class once because the teacher strongly prefers males. I am in a very male-oriented field, and although I’m not much of a girly-girl, I definately miss out on some of the bonding that creates business connections. I can never get over the classmate who gave me a ride home and told me not to worry about an extension cord on the floor because it was “guy stuff”. He did know that I am part of a field that invovles lots of work with electronics, electricty and big expensive equiptment, but I don’t think he knew that I’m also a pretty skilled carpenter. Anyway, I definately feel I have to work harder to get people to let me play their reindeer games, but it seems a little balanced out by the fact that people like the novelty of a girl in the field.
Let’s see, as a kid a black girl beat me up for no reason. Later I asked here what the heck she was doing and she said she thought I might be a racist. I told her I wasn’t and she apologized. It was all very educational and touching.
Korean transsexual lesbian, married to another woman.
Never been discriminated against in my life that I know of.
Yeah, but that will all change if you get divorced.
Yes; I was mistaken for a neo-nazi skinhead.
Seriously; I was a poor manual labourer and I bought my clothes from army surplus; I shaved my head to raise money for charity and a short while later I was intercepted and threatened by a mixed group of men while out walking. I managed to talk them out of harming me.
I’ve been refused lots of jobs because I’m a mother…I was even sacked from one when my son got seriously crook for three days and I needed to stay home to care for him.
Discrimination knows no boundaries…black. white, male, female, three tongues, five thumbs…whatever. If your employer wants to screw you over for your strangeness, he/she will.
I’m a white woman and I’ve also been discriminated against. I have a degree in Japanese, speak it fluently with a Kobe accent (or at least I used to) and am a trained translator. Back in the mid-1980’s, I was hired over the telephone for a job in Hawaii in Japanese tourism. I moved out there and, several months later, was “asked to leave” because my “Japanese wasn’t good enough”. I was the only non-Japanese woman working for this company and one of the only two non-Japanese men was the owner’s brother-in-law. It’s interesting that my Japanese was good enough for every other company I worked for in Hawaii. When I would change jobs, I was also aware that there were some Japanese tourism companies which would not hire non-Japanese. For amusement once, I tried to see if I could get a company to come out and say it. Their bottom line was if I submitted my resume in Japanese, they might consider me for an entry-level job which I’d already had and done well. Keep in mind there weren’t many Japanese word-processing programs around and I didn’t own a computer.
Eventually, I moved back to Pittsburgh and wound up temping for an outfit which helps women and minorities set up their own businesses. Because I could do a bit more than just answer the telephones, they hired on another temp to do the straight clerical work while I concentrated on other projects. Several months later, they decided to hire one of us as a full-time clerk and the company basically split into. The other woman, who was black, got the job. Racism could have been a factor; another factor could have been that I was allied with the Vice President’s faction, not the Presidents. (That’s the last time I’ll make that mistake!)
CJ
Yes. I was a 29 year old white man, unemployed. I applied for a job with a company that cared for ornamental plants at offices and other commercial locations. They called me for an interview and then told me “We really prefer to hire women.”