My story of Racism at the workplace. Has anyone else experienced something like this?
When I was eighteen I started working for this manufacturing company up the street from where I lived. It was a very derelict structure of brick and tin roofing the color of rotting green manure and clay and brick dust floating around in little specks of light. You'd think I went to work in some foreign country the way I describe it, but that's how it was. And there was a strict policy of no women's anywhere from what I could tell the janitor that came around once every month or so kept his supplies in the only restroom 🚺 which had that triangle pic of a girl on it. On the men's side the stalls were filled with graffiti and swastikas and Spanish words that I could only assume said fckyou white people. It was filled with huge industrial machinery that made ear splitting sounds and bone crushing movements. This is just a detail of the work environment.
The part I want to tell happened ten years later when I was one of the machine operators working the graveyard shift with two other people one from Mexico and my Manager from El Salvador whom also ran part of the machinery. I've had ten years of experiencing every form of racism, misogyny, sexism, harassment... Probably every story from anyone that has worked in a place like this and more. My coworker the Mexican guy I'll call him W in this story was a mid forty year old with a left eye that didn't work and which I was instructed on never asking about or mentioning before I started working with him. I noticed a lot of the other guys on the other crews and even the high ups like to joke to him about he was joto(gay) and they would ass grab and sht joking around trying to get a reaction from the new comers and gueros.
One day W came up to me and asked if I would sell him my car which was a 97 Honda Accord (my grandmother's) old car. I said no but my brother is trying to get rid of his old car so follow me one day after work and I'll let you check it out. That Saturday we got off around 2 p.m. and he followed me to my parents house which was just two minutes down the road from where we worked. And he came and looked at it and we talked a little bit and he said I got some beer in my car do you want one and I said hell yeah because I really loved beer back then. This is the part of the story I was trying to get to. After bs-ing through three or four beers in broken English he didn't really talk much in English but we both knew just enough of english and Spanish that we rarely didn't understand each other. So I asked him W why do you let them call you joto and sht when you have a family and kids. And he told me it's because he doesn't always understand what is going on around him because everyone talks a different language and comes from a different background and so when everyone is happy and joking around he knows that everything is ok at work and he's not about to be let go or anything. But he also told me that he is so much different in the way he acts at home then how he is at work. He's the man at home and his wife and kids know it and they love him. And drinking with him and hanging out with him I could see that that he really was just a smart relaxed guy and it made me mad that he had to pretend to be someone else so he didn't inadvertently step on anyone's toes. And it still makes me mad because I've dealt with the same kind of stuff.
This isn't how I wanted to explain how much I hated the racism at work and it was a lot longer than I thought it would be. I had other stories I could have told but yeah I left that job soon after.
The part I want to tell happened ten years later when I was one of the machine operators working the graveyard shift with two other people one from Mexico and my Manager from El Salvador whom also ran part of the machinery. I've had ten years of experiencing every form of racism, misogyny, sexism, harassment... Probably every story from anyone that has worked in a place like this and more. My coworker the Mexican guy I'll call him W in this story was a mid forty year old with a left eye that didn't work and which I was instructed on never asking about or mentioning before I started working with him. I noticed a lot of the other guys on the other crews and even the high ups like to joke to him about he was joto(gay) and they would ass grab and sht joking around trying to get a reaction from the new comers and gueros.
One day W came up to me and asked if I would sell him my car which was a 97 Honda Accord (my grandmother's) old car. I said no but my brother is trying to get rid of his old car so follow me one day after work and I'll let you check it out. That Saturday we got off around 2 p.m. and he followed me to my parents house which was just two minutes down the road from where we worked. And he came and looked at it and we talked a little bit and he said I got some beer in my car do you want one and I said hell yeah because I really loved beer back then. This is the part of the story I was trying to get to. After bs-ing through three or four beers in broken English he didn't really talk much in English but we both knew just enough of english and Spanish that we rarely didn't understand each other. So I asked him W why do you let them call you joto and sht when you have a family and kids. And he told me it's because he doesn't always understand what is going on around him because everyone talks a different language and comes from a different background and so when everyone is happy and joking around he knows that everything is ok at work and he's not about to be let go or anything. But he also told me that he is so much different in the way he acts at home then how he is at work. He's the man at home and his wife and kids know it and they love him. And drinking with him and hanging out with him I could see that that he really was just a smart relaxed guy and it made me mad that he had to pretend to be someone else so he didn't inadvertently step on anyone's toes. And it still makes me mad because I've dealt with the same kind of stuff.
This isn't how I wanted to explain how much I hated the racism at work and it was a lot longer than I thought it would be. I had other stories I could have told but yeah I left that job soon after.
