EDUC 6164 - week 6

As I read through the assignment, I knew exactly which incident I would write about. My last job as a pharmacist was a very unique one: I was hired by an American company that was set up overseas in order to bring a healthcare service to American standards. We were to work closely with the existing management in order to make the changes necessary.

The overt prejudice that was directed at me was by the existing director of pharmacy, who refused to accept me as an American pharmacist with the education and expertise like the rest of the American team. Because I was of another nationality by birth, and spoke another language (same as hers), I was rejected as not American enough for the job.

The result was an oppression because I could not do the job that I was hired to do, by my American employer. Equity was diminished instantly because my employer was forced to hire a male American pharmacist who had no other ethnicity to do the job, and I had to take on different responsibilities.

Of course I felt humiliated at the time, and although my American employer stood by me and rejected such bias, I was still marginalized. It left me feeling helpless and frustrated because I knew that I could get the job done, but only prejudice got in the way.

For that kind of prejudice to change, it would need a change in the mind set of people like that pharmacy director. My leaders were quite confident in my qualifications, experiences and approach; but it was not enough to eliminate her overt prejudice.

I did learn from that experience, that that’s the way life is, and that I had to make better choices of where to work in order to avoid such inequities. I also learnt that I am lucky because I could look elsewhere for work, but some people have little choices and have to live with such inequity.