Observation Paper On Race And Ethnicity

The interaction that I observed took place at a car dealership around ten o’clock in the morning on a weekday. I was there waiting for my car to be serviced, along with other individuals in the waiting area. The atmosphere of the environment was like most waiting rooms, people looking down at their phones and watching the television to make the time pass. The ‘Price is Right’ was on a very loud volume setting. This actually made people talk louder than they usual would, making the observation easy to distinguish because the individuals had to either yell or repeat themselves to get their communication across. As most of the patrons silently starred at their phones, a white male in his fifties entered the area to make coffee at the refreshment …show more content…
It’s hard for me to critic individuals on how representative they are to their culture because I don’t want to jump to conclusions about a person’s identification, especially when it comes to race and ethnicity. However, they were both white and middle-aged. I would say based off my observation that they are also both middle class, being able to afford maintaining a car’s repairs in this economy. One thing that stood out to me about this interaction is how different it may have been if they were different ethnicities. Would the woman be as open with this stranger if he was a black middle-aged man? Would she have even responded to the cheesy pickup line? It’s hard to say because of all the lack of information that I have on this women, but she could have just ignored his advance and continued to read her book. The same goes for the man approaching the woman. Would he have gone out of his way to talk to this woman if she was black or another ethnicity? Would they have had the same conversation if they were different races? Even if people don’t want to admit it, everyone has their own prejudices and biases towards other people. It’s a natural thing that happens whether we choose to acknowledge it or