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Strengths of personal reflection
Short summary of african american culture
Short summary of african american culture
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The first time that I experience difference was when I was in elementary school. I was eight years old and I was the only African American student in the entire school. The mass amounts of students were Caucasian. I always noticed the difference between me and my other classmates skin pigmentation, but I never really cared. Until my class went outside for recess one day and the game that we voted to play was kickball. Well my best friend was captain for one of the teams so I knew I was going to be picked first, but that didn’t happened. In fact I wasn’t picked at all, of course after the game I went to ask him why didn’t he pick me? He said it was because his dad said he couldn’t be friends with a nigger no more. I asked him what was that and he said me. …show more content…
That’s when the recess bell ranged and we had to all run to get in line so I didn’t have time to ask anymore questions.
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
anymore. My name is Craig Crawford. I really don’t mid how my name is pronounced, even though my name is Craig most people call me Greg. I am a black African American male. The values that I learned as a child still matters to me. One value is working hard it has been apart of my family values for a decades. It like my dad always says “You don’t have to be smart, you just have to be persistent”. I have encountered countless times of being discriminated against. One time was when waiting on my supervisor at my practicum. I was told to go wait in the lobby with the other clients (who just go out of jail). I told the staff member who told me to wait in the lobby that I was a student intern. He said that he was sorry and he though that I belong to the probation group because I was buff, black and bald. He did apologize, I just think that its insane how much people rely on what they think instead of asking questions to find out who people are. Honestly the reason I haven’t put a picture on my WNMU profile is because I don’t want people to know I am black. Its sounds crazy, until you find out that companies such as Bank of America give black and Hispanics an higher APR rate than Caucasians. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/bank-america-pay-335-million-settle-claims-countrywide-discriminated-minorities-article-1.995094 http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/crime/article24760804.html
I am an Asian with yellow skin very differ with Staples's skin color, but I still was discrimination by some people surrounding me. I remember the first year I lived in America, I was in Middle School, eighth grade; I never forget the day I get in a school bus, everybody: Black, White, Asian, they placed their backpacks on empty seats, because they did not want me to sit with them. I went through all seats and looked around; I was lucky, there was only one back seat left for me in a corner, but when I stepped close to having a sit, a white young girl said, “This seat is taken.” All of them laughed very l...
Sometimes, even my own friends would jokingly tease me or make rude comments about my ethnicity. I always laughed it off, because I did not know how to stand up for myself. It was also very ironic to me how xenophobic my peers acted towards me when I had been living in America for my whole
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
Through my life I have usually been on the receiving end of racist comments, such as wetback fieldworker etc. In seventh grade I had to go to a public school because of moving reasons and that is where the comments started. I can honestly say that it was the worst experience of my life. There were only two Mexican in my class; I was one of them. The other student was also Mexican, but the catch was that he was a well know soccer player. I also played soccer, but I was not the all-pro player. Since he was so good and so well know no one ever said a word to him. The first day at school everyone was nice to me. The first couple days were great, Everyone was friendly and willing to accept me. Going into my second week of school I met a girl Amy, she was beautiful. I was sitting at the lunch table one day and she walked by and I commented on how hot she was. One kid who I thought who was my friend said, “Since you are new here, I will let that go. I respond, “What do you mean?” Chad said, “l like Amy also, and whoever I liked no one tries stepping in, do you understand?” “Whatever dude” I said. Chad said, “Now listen, I like you and its is better off that way.” So naturally I did what I wanted to do, I asked Amy for her number. That weekend Amy and I went out on a date. I sure did have a good time. That following Monday, Chad heard about it that date and got very upset. Just after second period I heard someone yell out “HEY WETBACK, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE” I sort of had...
As a child, I never really knew that there was anything different about having parents of two different races because that was the norm for me. But as I started getting older, there was confusion when my dad picked me up from school because friends had seen my mother the day before and she was white. There was never judgement, but they just sort of made me feel weird for something I’d never even considered a problem. Being biracial has shaped my life experience in many ways. It’s given me insight to the theme “don’t judge a book
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.
While I never knew my father, I did grow to know the challenges faced by African Americans. I first began to feel different when I transferred from public to private middle school. People began asking about my ethnicity for the first time in my life. Until this time, it had never seemed important. Although I had never been overly fond of my curly hair, it, along with other traits deemed too 'ethnic' looking, now became a source of shame. I had a few not so affectionate nicknames because of those curls. I was shocked to realize that people considered me different or less desirable because of these physical traits. Being turned away from an open house in my twenties was just as shocking as being ...
My mother had a house in the white part of town, about a block from the geographic dividing line, so we went to the white school. I was one of three blacks in the entire high school. I remember my welcome sign the first day of school: "GO TO HERSHEY HIGH NIGGER" spray painted on my locker, signed in red by the KKK. In my junior year the school decided to celebrate Black History Month by devoting one afternoon's history class to a discussion of Black achievements. I was so anxious and excited. I was hoping to learn something more than the words of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. My excitement was quickly shot down as my teacher turned to the only Black in the class - me - and asked if I had anything to offer.
Have you ever been discriminated against simply because your skin is darker than the next person? Have you ever been told by someone that “your pretty for a dark skin girl or boy?” Have you ever been racist toward your own race? Since long before we or our parents were born, the black community has faced this problem of racism within the same race. In the black community, it is said that if a person has a lighter skin complexion, then they are superior to those with a darker skin complexion.
I was the only African-American and there was no one I could relate to or who could relate to me. I stayed to myself and kept thinking, Life is not always great, but I just have to get through this. There were certain people I was able to get along with, but even they would occasionally make racial comments. By then I was fully aware of how much respect they lacked.
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 as an only child I made out pretty well. You almost can’t help but be spoiled by your parents in some way. And I must admit that I enjoyed it; my own room, T.V., computer, stereo, all the material possessions that I had. But there was one event in my life that would change the way that I looked at these things and realized that you can’t take these things for granted and that’s not what life is about.
I was raised in the suburbs of Atlanta. My father was a black foreign man living in the south. The issue of race was always hovering. My mother, on the other hand, is extremely pale, but is of mixed descent. I can recall countless conversations with strangers when I was young and out with one parent, laughing and saying “Oh, your mom must be white,” or “You’re dad is black, right?” I’d just smile and nod, not thinking much of it.
As a child, I was always told to try my hardest and be respectful. This mainly applied to school and led me to believe that working hard was one of the few meanings in life. But as I aged, I realized I don’t even care about finding points x and y on a graph. What matters is forming relationships with others and finding those exciting moments that make you feel as though you’re walking on air. Life is hard but in the end, it pays you back, not with money, but happiness and memories. Looking back through photos like the one below, I now know that cheerful moments and the people who are a part of them are what truly matter. Make sure to enjoy every moment before it 's gone, life may be hard and even unfair, but you need
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.