I first became aware that people were different racially at the age of seven years old, when my parents and grandparents would tell us how our ancestors and grandparents were treated by white people before I was born. They taught us about slavery and told us all the things black people would get in trouble for, such as drinking out of the white people water fountain which was not allowed. We would listen to the stories of how my great grandmother went to jail for beating a white police officer for putting his hands on her and calling her bad names. How my great grandmother’s youngest son father is believed to be a white man because of his mix hair texture and white looking skin color. At the age of eight years old I being a member of the …show more content…
Martin Luther King Jr. movies, seeing how the black people were mistreated during the civil rights movement; this made me really angry. I really hated the way Dr. King dedicated his life to fighting racial issues and injustices and was murdered because he was doing something positive for our black race. He also was a black minister with a wife and children; he was not prejudice and he wanted black and white people to come together. To hate and kill an awesome leader because of his was of black color was very …show more content…
I remember incidents when my best friend and neighbor at the time , Amanda Bloodsoe, who was a white little girl who lived on my street and in my second grade class, uncle and grandmother moved in with her and her father, out whole friendship changed. Amanda’s grandmother and uncle was prejudice. They really did not like with idea of Amanda and I playing together. I would walk to Amanda’s house and ask her to come out and play; she would just look out the window and tell me that she cannot play today. This happened several times. I could not comprehend why Amanda stopped playing with me and started sharing all our secrets. So, I asked Amanda one day in school while we were outside on the playground why she does not want to play with me anymore. She stated that her uncle said she should not play with niggers, which lead me to ask her what a nigger is because I am not a nigger. She said her grandmother told her that a nigger is a black person and that I was a little nigger. Amanda’s grandmother told her that she needs to play with her own white race. I was so sad that I lost a friend. I went home for school and told my parents what Amanda said to me and why she does not play with me anymore. I begin to cry. My parent begin to explain racism and how some people are just that way. My dad was so upset he called them a bunch of white crackers and I did not
It has always been thought that racism is a taught and learned behavior, however this chapter provided evidence otherwise. White parents often try to make their child “color-blind” by not discussing race. They do this in hopes that if it is not made into a big deal, children will not focus on it. However, just because parents do not talk about it does not mean children do not recognize different races. When a parent does not discuss race, the child is left to their own observations to make assumptions about race. Developmentally, children use a single characteristic to categorize things around them into groups. This aids children in understanding and learning about the world around them. For parents who avoid the topic of race, this innate tendency to group people becomes problematic because differences in race are
Over the past year I have grown as both a person and a writer. My writing has improved
You come from a middle class white family, you went to a school whose demographic was mainly white, you live in a white neighborhood, the majority of your friends are white, you decided to continue your education at a college that has a heavily white student body. Notice any similarities? Every aspect of your life has been white. In the past we have had conversations about race, and your opinions always seemed to be unsettling and never really showed any empathy to the struggles minorities face. I never could figure out why you thought this way until I heard the term white privilege in my English class. Once I acknowledged the fact that unknowingly my race has given me advantages that people of color do not have, I am more aware about the racial
Martin Luther King Jr was one of the most beloved and one of the most hated men of his time. The legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is embodied in these two simple words: equality and nonviolence. He believed that Gandhi’s method of nonviolent resistance was the key to overcoming evil (The Archive, 1968). King was involved in many nonviolent protests including the Montgomery bus boycott, The Albany movement, and the Birmingham campaign. He also wrote many speeches and writings that changed the way people thought about others. In one of his most famous speeches, I Have A Dream, King says, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” He is basically saying that anger and revenge will actually do the opposite of setting you free. The hatred in your heart will never satisfy
I wanted to wear brand clothes/shoes they did, I wanted to do my hair like them, and make good grades like them. I wanted to fit in. My cultural identify took a back seat. But it was not long before I felt black and white did not mix. I must have heard too many comments asking to speak Haitian or I do not look Haitian, but more than that, I am black, so I always had to answer question about my hair or why my nose is big, and that I talked white. This feeling carried on to high school because the questions never went away and the distance between me and them grew larger. There was not much action my family could take for those moments in my life, but shared their encounters or conversations to show me I was not alone in dealing with people of other background. I surrounded myself with less white people and more people of color and today, not much has
Depending on where an individual lives; if they live in a mostly all white community than their children will go to a school that is mostly white, the teachers will be mostly white and the activities that the children are in other children will be mostly white. If one lives in a mostly black community they will go to a school that is mostly black, the teacher might be mostly black and the activities that they are in will have mostly black children involved. When children learn about the history of our country most of the famous explorers were white, children learn about slavery and how white people had black people for slaves. Children can assume from being in an environment as they are with everyone around them being white is that is “the way of the world” (Christman, 2013 pg.3).
Over the course of this class I feel like I have become a much better writer. When I go back and look at some of my Journal entries and assignments that I did at the beginning of the semester, I can’t help but tense up at some of the things I wrote. Sometimes the things I was writing didn’t flow well, or I might have even have missed glaring grammar mistakes.
As a kid, I didn’t understand what race meant or its implications. I was pretty much oblivious to it. Race meant getting some kids together and running a foot race. The one who made it to the end of the block won. I never felt that I was special because of my race. Nor did I feel discriminated against. Of course, I was sheltered from race and racism. I never knew any people of color because I grew up in an all-white, lower-to-middle-class blue-collar neighborhood. I never encountered someone of another race, and my parents made sure of it. I wasn’t allowed outside of our own neighborhood block, as my mother kept a strong leash on me. Not until I was much older did I wander outside the safety net of our all-white neighborhood.
As a second language learner I have never expected myself to be a perfect writer throughout the semester. Even If English was my first language still, I would not be a perfect writer. It is not about first or second language, it is about how well I understand the learning objectives. Then organizing and writing with my own ideas and putting them in my paper. I am going to be honest, I am not good at English subject and English subject is my strongest weakness than the other subjects. In this paper I will discuss and analyze my own writing, reflecting on the ways that my writing has improved throughout the semester.
To start off, my life has always been secluded by diversity. I grew up in a town of thirty thousand people in the middle of Nebraska. During my elementary school years, my school consisted of a majority of white students and a few Hispanics. Believe it or not, there was only one African American boy and he ended up changing schools. This is how it was clear up until high school where I graduated with a class of three hundred and fifty classmates and only five of them came from African American heritage. Because of this, I was taught primarily white side of views in history classes, or never even talked about black cultures at all. I finely remember a poster on the wall of a white hand holding a
Has anyone ever assumed anything of you? How about your occupation? What you’d like to be when you grow up? Being a different race in America comes with a big cluster of problems. Some examples are things you’ll see in the news. Maybe even things you hear about in public, whether they’re rumors or facts. Sometimes the news is good or sometimes bad. But sometimes, people have a way of matching two different events and scapegoating everyone of a certain race for it. But you probably know what I’m talking about. It may even have happened to you. I’ve been subjected to this too, to a minor issue called racism. I’d like to share a few personal things about me and a story of when I was young, when I first learned and experienced what a problem racism could be.
The many faces of race and ethnicity are such a large and broad subject, It is dominant in my family and my experiences. It was many years before I knew that I was in what would be considered a subordinate group or a minority of a group of people. Race was never discussed in my family. I was never told that I was less or better than another group or race of people. At the ages of eight and nine years old, my sister and I had no idea that when the cashier waited on the European lady who came in behind us first, was being prejudice and discriminatory. We didn’t know for some time, until we were older. It may seem odd but that is it the way it was in our neighborhood which was 99 percent black. There was one White/Native-American family. This family was not treated any differently than anyone else in the neighborhood. All seven of the children from this amalgamated couple, married into the African-American race. Coincidently, I just found out recently that the mother, who recently passed away, of this family was actually an Eskimo. I am not one who likes to stereotype a race or group of people but looking back and
Growing up I attended schools where white was the minority. One day towards the end of my sophomore year in high school, we were reviewing for the state exam we had to take in a few weeks. Our teacher excused himself from the room and one of the school security guards came in to watch us while we worked. We were working silently on our questions that were focused on the Holocaust. Suddenly someone behind me asked loud enough for everyone to hear “Samantha was your grandfather a Nazi?” I was completely blindsided. I had never really spoken to this person before. I calmly explained to him that my family was in the United States when the war started. All of a sudden, someone else asked “So did your family own slaves?” After I explained that this too was false, I found some people looking at me with skepticism, the security guard being one of them. These were questions that I had grown accustomed to over the years. I was used to some of my
All I knew was that he said we could be friends. After school I went to my mom in whaling tears to inform her about my tragic day of loosing my best friend. After I told her this she sat me down and explain to me what a nigger was. Honestly I heard my cousins call each other that so I thought it was a something good until my mom told me what it meant. I always knew I was different but it wasn’t until that day. I still remember it like it was yesterday, after that day we never played with each other again. Now that I am reminiscing about the situation I am shocked that my mom didn’t cause a ruckus at the school or at least investigate. This experience altered my thinking into judging people. Even though I am black I assumed that most black people were ignorant and scary because of the TV shows that I saw like boys in the hood and Menace to society. At the time I felt very upset not because I was discriminated against but because I couldn’t play with my best friend
Just a few days ago, I found a quiz that helped me determine if I showed any bias towards African Americans. Surprisingly, the results concluded that I viewed African Americans and European Americans in an equal manner, but if I was to take this quiz when I was eight years old the results would have been radically different. Ever since I was a little girl, I always had the impression that African Americans were very dangerous people due to the color of their skin. I came to this theory because when I was in second grade, there was a boy in my neighborhood that didn’t have any respect for his peers or elders. He would tease me, harass me, and he even trespassed on another neighbor’s property. I was scarred by this event in my life, and I rarely viewed African Americans in a positive way. However, this past summer changed my whole entire perspective.