Eleven years ago, when I first entered the school district I am currently in, it was predominantly White. As the years went on, I would see truckloads of White classmates move away while simultaneously seeing truckloads of minorities filling the space they left. I had no problem with this because I can speak to and feel comfortable with any person, regardless of ethnicity. It was not until my eleventh grade AP Psychology teacher, Mr. Surget, identified this phenomenon as white flight that I completely solved the puzzle. I did not think anything of it and still do not. But, as minorities, I thought the school would become a close-knit community in which we could share commonalities like experience and culture. Unfortunately, this proved false
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When I finish taking tests of any kind, I like to allow myself to clear my head and think about happier things like chocolate or gummy bears. Unfortunately, after taking the HSPA one day, the class got into a heated discussion about ethnicity, and my ears just could not help but listening in. From what I was hearing, Africans were getting the brunt of the racial stereotypes and rude “jokes.”
It was not like it was one ethnic group against the Africans. In my school we test using alphabetical order, so there was a mix of races with Hispanic/Latinos, Africans, Asians, Arabs, and Caucasians in the classroom. It was four ethnicities against one, pointing out all of a continent’s flaws and shortcomings. It was unfair and I could not stand for it.
Arguments do not pop out of thin air and both sides are to blame. In a lot of the situations I have been in with a mix of races involved, people often feel the need to raise their race, ethnicity, or culture over others’. In order to do this, individuals not only talk about the great things in their culture, but also feel the need to slander another’s heritage to make theirs seem better and I knew that is exactly how this argument came …show more content…
We were surprised to find that our mix of different races share more commonalities than differences we mostly find in our physical features. Math and food are just a few of the congruities we found in each other. Math is a universal language. No one culture claims numbers because different equations do not exist for different groups of people. Food was the most popular. As one person gave food as an example, people shouted out “Croissants!”, “Pizza!”, “Tacos!”, “Sushi!”, and many other delicacies. I pointed out that we all love these foods but fail to realize that these foods come from different parts of the world. Croissants are from France, pizza from Italy, tacos from Mexico, and sushi from Japan. We don’t separate our food based on culture, so “why do we do that to ourselves?”, I
When I finish taking tests of any kind, I like to allow myself to clear my head and think about happier things like chocolate or gummy bears. Unfortunately, after taking the HSPA one day, the class got into a heated discussion about ethnicity, and my ears just could not help but listening in. From what I was hearing, Africans were getting the brunt of the racial stereotypes and rude “jokes.”
It was not like it was one ethnic group against the Africans. In my school we test using alphabetical order, so there was a mix of races with Hispanic/Latinos, Africans, Asians, Arabs, and Caucasians in the classroom. It was four ethnicities against one, pointing out all of a continent’s flaws and shortcomings. It was unfair and I could not stand for it.
Arguments do not pop out of thin air and both sides are to blame. In a lot of the situations I have been in with a mix of races involved, people often feel the need to raise their race, ethnicity, or culture over others’. In order to do this, individuals not only talk about the great things in their culture, but also feel the need to slander another’s heritage to make theirs seem better and I knew that is exactly how this argument came …show more content…
We were surprised to find that our mix of different races share more commonalities than differences we mostly find in our physical features. Math and food are just a few of the congruities we found in each other. Math is a universal language. No one culture claims numbers because different equations do not exist for different groups of people. Food was the most popular. As one person gave food as an example, people shouted out “Croissants!”, “Pizza!”, “Tacos!”, “Sushi!”, and many other delicacies. I pointed out that we all love these foods but fail to realize that these foods come from different parts of the world. Croissants are from France, pizza from Italy, tacos from Mexico, and sushi from Japan. We don’t separate our food based on culture, so “why do we do that to ourselves?”, I