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Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
Fakhir Mustapha's Experiences
At a three-day training, it was obvious to me that one of the executives was trying to avoid asking me about my background. It was during Ramadan and I was fasting. Finally, he just asked, "You don't eat meat?" That was it.
I work in a heavily regulated industry - banking. So we always have discrimination meetings. We have an equal lending act that we have to adhere to. So we have to talk about how to discriminate and how not to discriminate.
At my first interview, I said: "Just to be clear, on Fridays I take a two hour lunch because I need to go pray. Just so you know. I can compensate by coming in early or leaving an hour late. I can work how ever much you want.
When I first got the job, I was filling out the forms. I was like, what should I do? Being Middle-Eastern, technically, I'm white. Being Egyptian and Egypt is in Africa, do I choose African-American? I was being friendly to the HR person so I asked what I should do. She said, could you pick the minority? I said, yeah, sure. I am an African, I am a minority. Why not pick African-American?
One of my coworkers was buying a new house so we went to Google maps to look it up. It's a satellite image so you can zoom in and see an image of the actual house. Another co-worker walked by and said, "What, are you selecting a target?" I was like "What did you just say?" I made a big deal out of it because I could.
When I'm traveling, some will say, "allow extra time when you are going to the airport." I'm like, "Yeah, I know." It's that kind of thing that will come up. But it's about the way you handle it. If you make a big fuss about it and get aggressive or defensive, I think for the most part it will encourage more of those kinds of comments.
I don't drink, but almost every week we have a happy hour--sometimes in the office, sometimes out of the office. Am I excluded from that? No. But I exclude myself because I don't drink. Am I missing out on job related things because of that? Things like networking? Yes.
I worked with someone who wouldn't say hi to me for a year. He is Jewish and his initial reaction was that he didn't even want to know me. Now we play golf every other weekend together. We'll go to se
If we are ordering pizza in the office, automatically someone will order a vegetarian one because they know I don't eat pork. I know that if someone is organizing a party, they will always make sure that someone will make sure that there is a non-alcoholic drink available for me.
I'm going to say something that may be stereotyping against Arab-Americans. But since I am one of them, I think I can say it. We think, "Because I am an Arab-American this is how I am getting treated." We get stuck on that.