First Recollections
Second grade was my first recollection of race. Prior to this event I obviously knew that I was African American, but never seen it as a disadvantage or advantage. My friends and I were playing basketball and I accidentally elbowed one of my classmates in the nose. After elbowing one of my classmates I remember being very apologetic, but the kid that I elbowed totally blew up. I do not remember exactly what he said, but it went something like this “All you black people are fucking stupid and like to fight.. Why don't you and your family go back to Africa and play in the jungle”. The other kids that were playing basketball with me started to laugh at me and that is the point where I reached rock bottom. I was at a school …show more content…
During my Freshmen year I remember hanging out with a long time friend of mine I meet in elementary school. After school we were waiting to get picked up and as soon as he saw his parents he separated from me very quickly. I was very confused and so I followed him not knowing he was trying to get away from me, and that's when he asked, “can you step away from me, my mother is pretty racist and will probably get mad if she sees me talking to you”. He said this while giggling thinking that would lighten up the situation. Crazy to think that people are ignorant enough to judge someone based of their race. I remember not even being affected by this event because I was just so used to having to deal with these ignorant people in Palo Alto. My main group of friend in high school were mainly Black and Mexicans. We all had to deal with the same ignorant people and that is probably why we were so close. While I was with this group of friends I did not have to worry about being judged based of my race, and was able to be myself. A lot of members in this group despised the other rich Asian and White kids and the school, and would judge them of …show more content…
Sometimes it hard to ask questions to learn about race without being disrespectful maybe because of all the racial tension. I can especially see this being a problem for Whites discussing race and racism with African Americans. I personally am very hard to be offended when it comes to race, but I can imagine other African Americans I know being offended easily. One thing that really gets under my skin when addressing race and racism are people expecting African Americans to get over slavery. I remember while in high school my classmate and I were having a discussion about race and when I rooted it back to slavery he shut me down. He said that “slavery happened 200 years ago, if we do not forget about this we will never resolve any race issue in America”. Slavery in America was absolutely horrible and being expected to forget about something of this extent is completely
Second grade was my first recollection of race. Prior to this event I obviously knew that I was African American, but never seen it as a disadvantage or advantage. My friends and I were playing basketball and I accidentally elbowed one of my classmates in the nose. After elbowing one of my classmates I remember being very apologetic, but the kid that I elbowed totally blew up. I do not remember exactly what he said, but it went something like this “All you black people are fucking stupid and like to fight.. Why don't you and your family go back to Africa and play in the jungle”. The other kids that were playing basketball with me started to laugh at me and that is the point where I reached rock bottom. I was at a school …show more content…
During my Freshmen year I remember hanging out with a long time friend of mine I meet in elementary school. After school we were waiting to get picked up and as soon as he saw his parents he separated from me very quickly. I was very confused and so I followed him not knowing he was trying to get away from me, and that's when he asked, “can you step away from me, my mother is pretty racist and will probably get mad if she sees me talking to you”. He said this while giggling thinking that would lighten up the situation. Crazy to think that people are ignorant enough to judge someone based of their race. I remember not even being affected by this event because I was just so used to having to deal with these ignorant people in Palo Alto. My main group of friend in high school were mainly Black and Mexicans. We all had to deal with the same ignorant people and that is probably why we were so close. While I was with this group of friends I did not have to worry about being judged based of my race, and was able to be myself. A lot of members in this group despised the other rich Asian and White kids and the school, and would judge them of …show more content…
Sometimes it hard to ask questions to learn about race without being disrespectful maybe because of all the racial tension. I can especially see this being a problem for Whites discussing race and racism with African Americans. I personally am very hard to be offended when it comes to race, but I can imagine other African Americans I know being offended easily. One thing that really gets under my skin when addressing race and racism are people expecting African Americans to get over slavery. I remember while in high school my classmate and I were having a discussion about race and when I rooted it back to slavery he shut me down. He said that “slavery happened 200 years ago, if we do not forget about this we will never resolve any race issue in America”. Slavery in America was absolutely horrible and being expected to forget about something of this extent is completely