Knowing Your Different
My definition of race is that everyone is a being with a heart that has the capability to love, a nervous system that feels pain, a brain that learns hate, and a soul that can be killed. The human being is a marvelous thing where this is concerned, but it can be its own demise.
Growing up my life was never the typical little white girl of the sixties world. My mom had me her senior year and her marriage lasted only two years. Being a single mom, her parents had me a lot of the time, while she went to school and worked. During this time, I would over-hear stories being told about the old days. You see, both her parents were half Indian and half Irish; they would talk often about how they were glad about their …show more content…
That it’s how we choose to react that makes us better even if they think we are not. Ultimately, God is the great judge on this. She emulated every day to us by her actions how we should be as human beings; be it at the grocery store or at the laundry mat. She was always there to help someone and had no problem telling those who were being disrespectful to someone else that they were wrong. I like to think I got that from her. She said “God’s not colorblind, but he will see how we treat one another”.
During my grade school years, I grew up in a predominately black neighborhood in Oklahoma, where only a handful of other white families living in this apartment complex, or going to the school that I and my sister attended. We were not treated kindly in the least. On many occasions, we were ostracized from play, or hunted down to be beat up for nothing more than our skin color. I was even abused by a teacher of color who shared the classroom with my teacher. Funny where was my white privilege …show more content…
Why not? I live the white lifestyle and behave that way; I guess. So, I do not even bring up my ethnicity; for after all I do not even look Indian, never lived on a reservation. I have lived as a white person my whole life, to the point that I most of the time growing up I forgot there was any Indian in me; why? Because we could have more opportunities if people did not know.
So, when someone of a minority hears me talk about racism; they scoff, thinking I have no clue what I am talking about. How could I even know where they are coming from; for my skin is white? I am privileged. When in fact, I grew up poor; mostly in poor neighborhoods. My family has even been homeless three times before I graduated high school, yet at least I was lucky to have parents to teach me to look past what you see on the outside of a person. Not to assume; for to do so would make an ass out of you and me, after all; would it
My definition of race is that everyone is a being with a heart that has the capability to love, a nervous system that feels pain, a brain that learns hate, and a soul that can be killed. The human being is a marvelous thing where this is concerned, but it can be its own demise.
Growing up my life was never the typical little white girl of the sixties world. My mom had me her senior year and her marriage lasted only two years. Being a single mom, her parents had me a lot of the time, while she went to school and worked. During this time, I would over-hear stories being told about the old days. You see, both her parents were half Indian and half Irish; they would talk often about how they were glad about their …show more content…
That it’s how we choose to react that makes us better even if they think we are not. Ultimately, God is the great judge on this. She emulated every day to us by her actions how we should be as human beings; be it at the grocery store or at the laundry mat. She was always there to help someone and had no problem telling those who were being disrespectful to someone else that they were wrong. I like to think I got that from her. She said “God’s not colorblind, but he will see how we treat one another”.
During my grade school years, I grew up in a predominately black neighborhood in Oklahoma, where only a handful of other white families living in this apartment complex, or going to the school that I and my sister attended. We were not treated kindly in the least. On many occasions, we were ostracized from play, or hunted down to be beat up for nothing more than our skin color. I was even abused by a teacher of color who shared the classroom with my teacher. Funny where was my white privilege …show more content…
Why not? I live the white lifestyle and behave that way; I guess. So, I do not even bring up my ethnicity; for after all I do not even look Indian, never lived on a reservation. I have lived as a white person my whole life, to the point that I most of the time growing up I forgot there was any Indian in me; why? Because we could have more opportunities if people did not know.
So, when someone of a minority hears me talk about racism; they scoff, thinking I have no clue what I am talking about. How could I even know where they are coming from; for my skin is white? I am privileged. When in fact, I grew up poor; mostly in poor neighborhoods. My family has even been homeless three times before I graduated high school, yet at least I was lucky to have parents to teach me to look past what you see on the outside of a person. Not to assume; for to do so would make an ass out of you and me, after all; would it