Perpetrators and Victims of Prejudice

Dear Readers,

This is another post from me. This first paragraph acts as a disclaimer. This post is not intended to offend anybody or to put down anyone. This post is merely my thoughts and I hope readers do not be too sensitive as this may cause problem which can be very detrimental.

Q: Have you ever been in the company of a group of which you clearly were not included? Describe the circumstances. How did you act? How did the situation / event affect you?

Yes, I have been in a group which I was clearly not included. It was a fund-raising project and there was a committee being set up. I was in the committee. Then, a leader was chosen, but the leader was actually made leader just to facilitate the project.

So, we had our committee meetings. In one of the meetings, the committee made some decisions. One of the decisions made was to go to the member's house on the next day to settle the items for sale, so that if we cannot finish it, we can settle it on another day. Therefore, we informed one of the members of the committee to prepare some materials to make the items for sale. So, on the same day itself, I called the member who was supposed to settle the materials to inform her on how much materials was needed. After that, she went down with her family to Malaysia just to get the materials. After she left for Malaysia, I received an sms from the leader saying that we would not be making the items for sale on the next day, and instead, five days later. I replied to his sms asking why the decision, but he just simply said that it could be settled five days later and I did not have to worry.

Then, I kept trying to call the member who already was in Malaysia. However, the time when I managed to contact her was when she returned to Singapore and already bought the materials. I told her the news and she was a little disappointed too.

I felt very disappointed then. I felt that I was not included and the decision made during the meeting, which was suggested by me, was not respected. I felt that the leader should have stated it during the meeting and not send a last minute sms just to instruct me that we were not going to go to the member's house the next day, which I have been waiting for quite excitedly as I felt that it was going to be fun. However, I could do nothing, as I was just a little member of the committee and we still needed to listen to the leader.

After that incident, I learnt that if we want to be a leader, we should not be the ones asking for people to respect us. Instead, we should be respecting others. Leaders are to lead, not to instruct and make everyone agree to their thinking just because he/she is a leader. This incident left a great mark in me as I was greatly affected. I used to think that he would be a good leader, but after the incident, I had a totally different thinking. This was how much it affected me. My great impression on him was totally destroyed after that incident. Although I don't feel as strongly towards him right now, but certain negative feelings are still existent.