The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

This week I have the chance to share about an incident where I have experienced bias, prejudice, and/or oppression, or witnessed someone else as the target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression in this day and time.. I choose to discuss an incident that will never leave my mind and I will always try to best to change the attitudes and  behaviors of the people in this town. On July 27, 2012, a friend and I chose to go to a local restaurant in a small town in Mississippi, the same town where I have lived for 36 years. We entered to building and a sign said, please wait to be seated by waiter, so we waited and waited and waited so after after five minutes or so we seated our selves. After a minute of being seated a man walked over to our table, please let me remind you that this man is the waiter who was supposed to seat us when we entered to building. He blatantly said " you can't sit here, you have to sit back yonder", my mouth dropped and my friend begin to drop her head because she knew what was about to come out of my mouth. I explained to the man that we were not going to move and I did not see a reserved sign that said " white only"" or "colored". I asked the man why was he whispering did he not want all the professional people in the restaurant to know that there was a table for " colored only" in this day and age. So I let the people know that they were eating in a restaurant that had "hidden prejudices". I asked to speak with the manager and he came over along with some other people in the restaurant and I explained my story, several people asked for us to sit at their table, the restaurant was fill with white people. I joined a white couple who was so polite and she explained to us, that they was not aware that blacks was asked to sit in the back, she had never noticed it and the lady got up and went to every table talking to others, so many people came over to us apologizing for what we had went through and paid for our lunch to eat at the same restaurant for the next week. My friend and I have been enjoying lunch on the locals and we will eat our last meal on Monday. The people are much friendlier as we walk through the door, but there are still a few stares and whispers, but we will continue to eat there even when our free spree is over, we change change some attitudes if not all. 

I was so hurt because everything really thinks that prejudice like this instance does not exit, but they do, I call them " hidden prejudices' and they will never go away. This incident reminds me of what I see in movies not real life situations, and it disturbs me to think that with all the changes in the world we still have situation like the one me and friend encountered just last week. I don't think it's nothing I can do to change these types of situation, people are going to want to change from the old into the new, and people refuse to change and that's just final. Education and knowledge key if we are going to change the mindset of people.