No shaking Indian hand
By Techgirl

While studying and working in USA, I noticed that while places like New York and California treated Indians as equals, a little racism was alive and kicking in smaller cities and rural areas.  Having said that, we Indians can be very racist as well.  Racism is a sickness that permeates every society.

Technology guru Brad Feld co-founded Foundry Group and currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor, Cheezburger Networks, Fitbit, Gnip, MakerBot, Oblong, Orbotix, Standing Cloud, and Zynga.  Brad is one of the most respected names in technology in USA.  Brad has just blogged about racism against an Indian in USA

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On Thursday, I got a call from a CEO of company I’m on the board of. He was very upset as he relayed a story to me. He had just heard from one of his employees who had been at a customer site for the past three days with another employee. The first person (person A) is white; the second is Indian (person B). The customer site is a government owned military installation.

Upon arrival, the customer would not shake hands with B. The customer would not acknowledge B’s presence directly. Over the course of the three days, the customer made endless racial and ethnic slurs directed at B. While it was extremely uncomfortable, A and B did their work, put up with the nonsense, and were professional.

While the CEO was relaying this to me, I was pacing outside a room that I was about to give a talk in. I was furious at the customer. I was sad that A and B hadn’t called the CEO immediately – I know he would have told them to pack it up and come home right away and he’d deal with the customer situation directly. The notion that B, and A, had to put up with racist behavior for three days was appalling to me. Especially at a government facility. In the United States. In 2011. In the tech business.
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Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.  Techgirl has been ejected from Twitter for satirizing an Indian Minister.  Her satire blog has links to her Times of India interview detailing her being kicked out of Twitter, and then being invited back.