I live in a predominately Latino neighborhood and one day I went into a shoe store to try and support the area I live in. I ended up buying two pairs of shoes but the whole time the people in the store were staring at me, making me feel unwelcome. They didn’t realize that I could understand some of what they were saying in Spanish. Just because I was white, they assumed that I didn’t know anything. I probably won’t be going back there again and it’s disappointing to see people act that way.
Unfortunate :(
I used to go to this grocery store when I lived in Miami. The owner seemed to be a nice guy and was always very helpful, until one day he heard me speaking on my phone with my mother, in spanish. After that he said he did not want my business.
Ridiculous :(
Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color. ~Author Unknown
Education is key!
Ideas surrounding racism are not concepts that an individual is born believing, they are concepts that are taught through agents of socialization: family, media, peers and schools. In order to combat racism education is key, because as a society we must understand the underlying conditions in order to prevent it from continuously bleeding out into the world. We must build a strong foundation in order to create change and that foundation begins with education and fearless individuals.
-“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Nelson Mandela
Asking the question
How do we as individuals fix racism around us, even if it has been engrained in the minds of people for many years? What are the best techniques for starting the dialogue? What are the best approaches?
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ive experienced prejudice. but not any extreme/direct racism, other than the occasionally “ok nigger”. no one in a power above me has acted on their prejudice (at least i havent noticed)
(my boyfriend’s experience)
a favorite story that erases rascism
“At certain times I have no race, I am me . When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue, Harlem City, feeling as snooty as the lions in front of the Forty-Second Street Library, for instance. So far as my feelings are concerned, Peggy Hopkins Joyce on the Boule Mich with her gorgeous raiment, stately carriage, knees knocking together in a most aristocratic manner, has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads.” -Zora Neale Hurston
Read the rest of How to Be Colored Me.
Racism’s Antidote
One of the best things about going to high school in the south suburbs was the ethnic diversity of my all girls high school. I had graduated from an all Caucasian grade school, and did not live in an ethnically diverse community. High school was my first chance to get to know girls of different races. I’m so grateful that my parents chose to send me to a diverse high school. One of my best friends was an African American girl, still the funniest girl I’ve ever met in my life, Sirena Jones. Ruth Carlos, who was a mix of Asian and Mexican descent, was the number one girl in the class and often (when I was lucky!) my study partner. One of the most talented singers at our school, a mix of African American and Caucasian backgrounds, is now a music professor at Oberlin College. Some of the girls I’ve lost contact with, but many of them I will never forget. Racism is born of ignorance and fear. I’m glad my parents passed on to me at a young age the gift of an open mind and heart. It’s something I am passing on to my children, and I believe the most potent antidote to racism.
Work for a Racist???
In 2007, I was hired to work at Office Max. There were two managers and plenty of diversity hired in with me. Before working for this company I had never felt as though Racism even existed anymore. At the time I was also a student at a university, so when I had interviewed, I emphasized that my schooling was important and to have flexibility in my schedule was what I needed. About two weeks working into this job I was told by many of the other workers that, one of the managers in particular, was a racist. I swore that it was just them being a “glass half empty” type of a person, but I soon was snapped into the reality of the racism. This man would work me longer than the other “non minority” employees, I was put at the bottom of the barrel for my pay, I was yelled at, and called dumb, and one day I called in and asked what my schedule was for that week and that manger told me that I didn’t work on the days that I actually was scheduled for. Thus, giving me write ups for not showing up. Also, on the days that that manger was using my register, I would always come up short on that register. I decided to quit that job, because I felt used and discriminated against, but before I left I sent in a anonymous comment for the company to review about the situation. I soon found out that he had been previously moved from 3 other stores for similar incidents. I had thought that it was impossible for him to be racist because he seemed nice and he had just hired so many minorities, but I had to remember, Companies have “diversity quotas” that need to be meet, and his was not…
