blog 29

Who knew so many well educated people could be so stupid?
An Asian woman lawyer reported:
"They gave me a document in Korean and said, 'Can you read this?' And I said, 'This is Korean. I'm Chinese.' And they couldn't understand why I couldn't read it."
I believe I was 4 or 5 when I was told about different ethnicities and races and was told that all Asian Americans are not Chinese that there are all sorts of different ethnicities that make up the American population. It is truly stunning the way minorities are treated in any profession, but in Law you would assume, incorrectly that they would be sensitive to race. Gender is another obvious issue in large firms and it isn’t a surprise that white women and minority women get passed over more often than any race of man. Minority women switching to different law firms after racist or sexist issues, is also no surprise no one wants to stay somewhere that they feel oppressed and unwanted or harassed.
Minorities get passed over more frequently for events, promotions and various other opportunities but women of every race get passed over more than any man. So minority women literally have to claw and fight tooth and nail to make it in any firm. They have to be from better schools to even get a job due to their race, they have to work three times as hard, put in more hours and more effort to get scraps. Putting in so much effort only to be passed over for say a white male who is friendlier with the partners is a slap in the face and its upsetting because it’s a cycle. Women aren’t going to be invited to the country club to talk about sports or smoke cigars so they won’t get that face time that is required to get favoritism even more so older partners probably have very strict gender roles in their minds and having a woman of a different race is probably even more bizarre in their minds. It’s a shame that race mixed with gender makes it almost impossible to break down barriers and progress within a law firm.