Prejudice Examples In Everyday Life

My older brother had just won his first basketball game, I ran him his Gatorade after he was released from talking to his coach. After the game, Matt ran up to my mom and hugged her, she praised him for his hard work as we walked to the parking lot. As we were walking to the car we saw one of the parents mom bent over her son attending to an injury. Between my mother’s maternal instinct and her West Virginia upbringing, she rushed over to help. The boy was frantically crying as his mother was inspecting his finger, she began to show my mom where his finger was red and swollen, my mother with a concerned voice asked, “What happened? Did he stove his finger?” The boy’s mother looked up at my mom with an irritated look in her eyes, and sarcastically came back with, “ No Ms. West Virginia, he didn’t stove his finger, but he’s fixin’ to.” My mother felt completely shut down and deflated. …show more content…
As I reminisce on them and compare them to what I hear and the literacies I’ve adjusted to in my everyday life, it is evident how different they are. As my secondary discourse in West Virginia becomes more prominent to me, so does my compassion. The stereotyping and judgement their language undergoes has become more noticeable to me as I grow up and mature. I try to picture my friends in California, and the reaction they would have witnessing the discourse that I am use to in West Virginia. If they sat with me at the dinner table with my family back home, what facial expressions would they make if they heard my uncle say, “I don’t want no piddlin’ of mashed taters,” Would they judge him? Would they judge me? If I hadn’t visited West Virginia since I was little, and only visited every few years, would I be judgmental to the ways they communicate too? Even if I was unfamiliar with their language, would I still be able to sense the warmth and neighborly feeling they radiate despite their “broken”