Over the years I’d learned it’s one thing how people treat me, it’s another to see how they behave toward someone they perceive as less powerful. I’m especially sensitive to this because, as a child, I saw how my mother, a small brown woman with a foreign accent, would be treated in a fancy department store and other public places: as if she didn’t belong or couldn’t afford to be there. She was a distinguished scientist doing groundbreaking research, but often I saw her encounter derision and disrespect.
