That is unacceptable! Hope you manage to find some colleagues with more respect. As for the response of your instructors - ridiculous. I wish you were in the UK.

Not that everybody's experience in the UK is wonderful! I take that part back! (it won't let me edit!)

Thanks for caring, unfortunately, the majority of society here is away from morality and justice.

Whoa that is quite a leap! Because it's the US it's mostly racist BY NATURE? You can't talk about racism and then make blanket judgements like that.

Having people who were friends suddenly stop talking to you is unfortunate but in itself isn't proof of racism.

Can you give us some explicit examples where you are clearly experiencing racism? That might help us to understand what you are facing.

Being encouraged to "make friends with people from your part of the world". What more do you want?

But this victim role makes life so easy :) Let's be honest, what else could it be? MUST be racism or sexism. As we all know these are basically the only two things that make us dislike certain people ;)

Unfortunately this kind of behavior is more common than we think, particularly in academia. Maybe they see you as a threat to their position, or maybe they are just insecure or jealous, who knows. Perhaps they come from a common social and cultural background and they are not prepared to let anyone else in their group.

On the one hand you must grow a thick skin, because you find people like that in every area of society. On the other you need to think very carefully what you are doing there and what you want to take away from this experience. You are there to learn and give your contribution to that research group. Hopefully you will build a network that might be useful for your future research. If you manage to build up a friendship, it would be wonderful, but this is not a given and definitely not the point of the exercise.

I came across people like that many times and in different environments. So, my advice is: do not try hard to fit in. Keep it simple and professional. Usually people with that attitude auto-eliminate themselves from the scene pretty quickly.

When you have a meeting prepare yourself as well as you can. When you have something to say, do so, gently, but firmly. Often it is just enough to say: I would like to add....if you don't mind. You don't need to sound sarcastic, or to shout, but you need to be assertive.

It might be hard the first few times, but then with time you will earn their respect if you bring something useful to the group, and the rest will follow.

with regards to building friendships: I would suggest that you look at your mates very carefully - what ideas/ values/ behaviors do they share (other than ignoring you)? Are you prepared to conform to or give in to some of them? If they behave as you said, maybe it is better to look somewhere else!

I think you may be overinterpreting the advice Bah was given. If the supervisor was racist why would he hire her in the first place? It could simply be that the supervisor is trying to be helpful. Maybe Bah comes across as homesick and he thought this might help. None of us have any idea.
There could be any number of reasons why Bah is disliked. in the first post in this thread Bah asks if they are "jealous" without giving any reason as to why they might be. Does she talk too much about herself?
Bah is also apparently much older than the others. Could be ageism. Could be they see her as domineering or controlling. Could be anything but she is going with racism whilst at the same time insinuating that because it is the US then by definition it is obviously racism. All I am asking is for some examples because we have only been told one part of the story.

Yeh, I think what I said previously expresses that I think there are a million and one reasons as to why this could be happening. I think the "your part of the world" comment isn't really helpful in the context, and adds to Bah's feeling that there may be some implicit racism going on here.

Thats probably something I would agree with although knowing the context in which that advice was offered is absolutely essential in determining the intent of the supervisor. Its impossible to know whether you are getting the whole story or not on an online thread. 2 minutes in her lab and I would probably see the root of the issue straight away. On here it is impossible to be sure.

Thank you so much DrCorinne for your wise advice. You exactly got my situation right and I feel your recommendation will be really helpful. I have recently started to act that way and I feel it's working! In response to pm133 and Tudor_Queen, I will give you some examples when this semester finishes. Since I don't know real identities here, I have some concerns about this semester. I will soon provide some more information. Thank you so much for caring!

Hey Bah, No need for examples for me. I hope that some of my previous messages were a bit useful. All the best.

No problem. Some examples would certainly help provide context because nothing you have told us so far has provided any proof of racism. The problem with that is that if everyone assumes racism is the problem then you will receive advice on how to handle racism. That could make a bad situation much much worse for you. I'm not asking for examples to be a pain in the backside. I'm asking for examples so that I can understand your problem as fully as possible before recommending a solution. I think it's worth clarifying my own position on this for your benefit.

Having said all of that, you probably should be careful about what you put online as you never know who is reading.