Personal Experience with Oppression

I remember being pregnant with my first daughter I was a junior in college. I had no job and relied on financial aid to help me pay my tuition. I applied for Medicaid for pregnant women to help with my prenatal care. When I applied I remember feeling like the white woman helping me did not look me in the eye when she talked to me, she was very short with her answers, and seemed to have an attitude. She even said things such as we will help you with transportation, we can assist you with child care for your other children, we will help you find a place to stay, and we will help you with employment.  The entire time in my head I’m saying I have a car, an apartment, no other children, and I can’t work until I’m done with school. It was at that moment that I told her mam I am a college student, this is my first child, I have a place to stay, and I am not currently looking for a job but I will when I graduate. She looked up at me and said you are the first young black girl to come in here with no kids and in college good for you.  I was furious. The woman assumed that because I was a young black girl that I had children, didn’t work, and wasn’t educated. She then tried to make me feel good by saying good for you. Reflecting back this is a form of oppression. If I could go back I would really explain to the lady how her comment made me feel and how she shouldn’t assume things about a race just because she works in a field that helps individuals in those situations.