How to handle this injustice or situation??

Question

The person in charge of a group of us is a black female. First, she is failing to remain professional in that she says too much and is unfair (gives certain members preference over other members of another race).
Some of her comments have been:
1. "Just because they say you are 'good' doesn't mean they'll hire you" to one member who has been praised by a consulting group and says to another member, "I'll try to get you into that consulting group when you finish this round". In other words, she is openly praising and supporting one member when the other member was not given the same support or praise.
2. " I can't go by what others praise about you. I have to see for myself"--when this professional field we're in revolved around trust .
2. "Who is she? She doesn't know who she is?!"---3 times over the course of meetings, when referring to a person of another race who has decided to go with her ethnic name.
3. She threatens us with, "You need my reference, don't you?"

This happened on Friday. I was so upset, couldn't accomplish a thing the rest of the day, went to bed upset. Got up on Saturday, cried the whole morning. Then consulted a black friend who agreed she is racist, so I should write a letter to her supervisor!

Answer 1

You have two choices.

First, you may opt to quit pleasing her. Apparently, from what you are saying, she has her "seemingly confused" standards. You have your own standards too. Just do things your way so you'll be at peace with yourself. You decide what's good for you.

Second, you may choose to please her. It seems she is just waiting to see herself from the people below her. If you will opt to please her, then you can copy whatever she does...that is, if you can live with yourself with self-respect afterwards.

If I were you, I'll just show her what I am made of. This will take a lot of courage.

Answer 2

This isn't even close to injustice in my world.

You do need her reference. If you have process in place for complaints use it. But remember, she can probably exact her revenge if you try. Is this really worth a good job, promotion or inability to accomplish those things over some societal or personal expectations and judgments?

Life is unfair. Let it go and move on.