Reflective Essay: My First Minority Experience

I have lived my life as a white, heterosexual, upper middle-class male. The community I grew up in, Ann Arbor, openly embraced these representative markers, and usually allowed me to remain in the majority. The situations in which I was in the majority, with respect to class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., have far outnumbered the situations in which I was in the minority. To put it simply, I have almost always been welcomed. Yet this seemed to magnify my perceptions for when I was in the minority. It is sort of akin to when a friend of mine from southern California spent his first winter in New York City, New York. The drastic change in climate from California to New York seemed to impact him more than myself, a person from a similar environment and one who has grown up …show more content…
My apartment complex was quaint for the Bronx; it had an older group of tenants and was unusually quiet for the city that never sleeps. And the week before I started working for City Year, I decided to find a local basketball court to play some ball. I played basketball growing up and co-captained my team at Ann Arbor Pioneer. It has always been one of my favorite pastimes. So I figured what better way to break in the neighborhood than to sink some three pointers on these Bronx ballers on a beautiful summer day! I found an outdoor court near my apartment, and there was luckily a competitive game going on. But as I approached the court, I realized that I seemed to be the only white person there. Having played ball my whole life, I knew the swag and vernacular often required to play, but I did not seem to even get a chance to get in the next game. I never ended up playing in a game on that court my whole time in the Bronx. I am not sure if it was because of my subconscious realization and consequential body language, or because I was not aggressive enough. But I decided to just shoot on a different