So for context: I am a white descendant (kind of mixed) that have grown up within African descendants in an African nation.
I do experience discrimination and differentiation here but I dont want to make this post too long. Some of discrimination I experience can be because of ignorance, others can be because of rude people. Some of it could just be incompatibility, people being in a different frequency than me. Sometimes also maybe I do make others feel uncomfortable because of my ignorance as well, I do strive to always become a better person. Anyways I have been through a lot of rejections, betrayals, abandonment, unjust treatment. It has been a big trauma in my life, I am doing each time better though. However I also want to say that I do have lots of good experiences as well, great friends, great memories and etc.
I want to talk about something specific though that has been bothering me frequently. Some people keep making jokes that I dont know what they mean by them, and they make me really uncomfortable in uncomfortable moments.
As an example:
I am at work, problem solving in tech area which is my field. I was able to do something in my mac laptop but my colleague couldnt do the same task on its windows laptop.
So they started slowly and very subtly insinuating things like guys that have macs are priviledged. I think thats bad because they are changing the subject from work to something else. While I am working now they are giving me the weight to feel guilty.
Then again my colleague was chatting with the supervisor and the supervisor again said, yes I guess you have to be rich like him and get a mac. It could definetely just be a genuine joke. However I have heard that supervisor making other comments. As an example he kept mentioning that there is already too many white ish looking people at the workplace. There was this other time this light skin guy moved from downstairs to upstairs and he said another joke: "Oh you allowed to easily move around, you got that EU passport right?" It is not even that serious because everybody was moving around. It is like he is firing shots. And other things like this and I have been only working there for 2 months.
It does bother me because I already had other similar experiences at my past internship.
I have a used mac from 2012. I mean generally I do have a better condition than lots of people in this nation since my father emigrated to the United States. So I am conscious of that. But I dont have it so easy like that. I have such a broken and split family, I didnt have so much guidance, so I have a lots of frustration. I am facing so much basic battles in my 30s now because of my hardhships I had to endure, so it is very frustrating for people to always call me priviledged and that I have it easy just based on my skin and hair.
I mean I see lots of black people here have a stable family, I see them with stability in family I never had before, they are doing very well financially, they have all the social acceptance here, but they still think they are entitled to call me priviledged. A lot of these people pointing fingers at me have never battled like me.
So it is pretty frustrating to hear them make jokes. It is something I go to constantly.
I mean there is a lot of poverty here though as well which is very sad, and there is so much frustration about that. People that need opportunities etc.
So anyways when Im confronted with situations like this and these types of comments it is frustrating because there is not so much I can say. Im new at work he says a comment like that, I dont really want to say anything back and make the environment uncomfortable. Im new at work, I want to be accepted by the people I dont want to get into troubles and confrontation.
So I have been working very hard more than my colleagues. Then the supervisor just says yea you got to be rich like him and get a mac so it can work for you. It could definetely be a genuine joke but it is kind of frustrating. Because I know his views on the subject he is always very hard on always wanting to talk about black people and Africa etc. Also because of the many experiences I have been in the past and still healing.
I dont know Im thinking the best way to deal with these situations is to just play along with it and not comfront. Anybody have any observations or ideas? it could be helpful to me.