Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Discrimination on the red carpet!!!!!!

"Oh my God!" was my reaction tonight at the Movieguide Awards at the Beverly Hilton. You may ask why. In the eight years of working in the entertainment industry, I never thought I'd be blatantly discriminated against. But tonight would change all that. As I was waiting for the red carpet to start with all the other photographers in the photo area with our press badges around our necks, I was singled out by a white rent-a-cop security (all the other photogs around me were caucasian). He came up to me and asked for my press badge. I guess to see if I belonged there. I turned to the photographer to the left of me and said, "What was that all about?" He said, "I don't know. That's weird. He didn't ask for my badge." All of a sudden, another photographer behind me said, "Oh wow! You were just discriminated against."

I shouted out, "Are you serious, was I just discriminated against because of my brown skin? Oh my God, you might be right, I'm the only non-white here in the photo section." The photog behind me said, "Yeah, I think you were. I have to take a picture of you and put it on my blog and talk about it on my site."



I was dumbfounded. The good thing was that I kind of brushed it off and did my job. I really think that this rent-a-cop didn't realize he had singled me out and by singling me out, he had subconsciously discriminated against me. The other photogs and I started to joke about it from saying "Oh, maybe he thinks you're muslim, maybe he thinks you're a trouble maker!" etc, etc....

I am one not to pull the race card but if all these other caucasian photogs said I was discriminated against then maybe I was.

Well I got my last laugh, when he walked into the press room and saw me, I flashed my badge and rent-a-cop just turned away...

Anyways...even though the Movieguide Awards is a faith and value based awards show, I will not be posting any photos from the event especially since I was allegedly discriminated at a show that should be about respect for others which respect was not given me by an overzealous rent-a-cop.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

he sucks

LBC Kali Guy said...

Yeah. I guess he does. I tried to look at the bigger picture as him doing his job. But he should have asked others also. So by singling me out it could be viewed as a discriminatory practice.

Anonymous said...

wtf?! dats sad sorry about that.... sorry dat happened to you

. said...

well that happens... a lot of times...

LBC Kali Guy said...

It shouldn't so I decided to put up a post about it.