TJ McLaughlin
Professor Nancy Sherman
PHIL-010-09
30 November 2015
Engelhard Reflection Paper
The address of my youth was not only the most loving and warm home a man could grow up in, but was also an address of privilege. With privilege, however, comes a lack of cultural diversity and understanding, which shields reality of life outside suburban walls. Coming from a predominantly white, all male catholic high school, having relationships outside of one's own culture is taboo and even looked down upon for not remaining in the same race or religion. My family is the contrary, a true melting pot of culture, race and religion but most importantly, an undoubted love remains solid, despite our unique family dynamic. My grandparents adopted 5 children, …show more content…
I experienced this first hand at the age of twelve when I had a friend over my house and he asked what my maid’s name was upon seeing my Mexican aunt. The truly sad thing about race today is that our society has turned skin color into a pervasive binary conflict. You are either white or not white and people have been using this distinction to define and rank others for thousands of years. The issues of racial profiling and stereotyping have become all too common around the world and Ross Gay makes it clear in his article entitled, “Some Thoughts on Mercy.” Gay discusses the relationship between African Americans and the police in America today. Basically, Gay, a professor at Indiana University, recounts a time in which he was wrongfully apprehended and physically brutalized by a police officer simply because of his skin color. Gay states that we “say, ‘Yeah, that’s just how it goes.’ Given what could’ve happened, I ought to be glad, right? I ought to get over it. But it is also the familiarity of it all (black guy has unpleasant run-in with the cops) that makes my experience, and the many thousands like it, almost invisible- which makes the significant daily terror of being a black or brown person in this country almost invisible” (Gay, 3). The true problem with racism is that it has become a system so intertwined with society that the suffering of minorities has become invisible and essentially accepted, until now. Overall, the Engelhard project encourages young minds like ours to not only connect living and learning, but also to foster one of Georgetown's most important Jesuit principles, cura personalis, or care for the person. In the pursuit of academic success and self-reflection, we, as a human race, can collectively end the culture of racism that plagues our very
Professor Nancy Sherman
PHIL-010-09
30 November 2015
Engelhard Reflection Paper
The address of my youth was not only the most loving and warm home a man could grow up in, but was also an address of privilege. With privilege, however, comes a lack of cultural diversity and understanding, which shields reality of life outside suburban walls. Coming from a predominantly white, all male catholic high school, having relationships outside of one's own culture is taboo and even looked down upon for not remaining in the same race or religion. My family is the contrary, a true melting pot of culture, race and religion but most importantly, an undoubted love remains solid, despite our unique family dynamic. My grandparents adopted 5 children, …show more content…
I experienced this first hand at the age of twelve when I had a friend over my house and he asked what my maid’s name was upon seeing my Mexican aunt. The truly sad thing about race today is that our society has turned skin color into a pervasive binary conflict. You are either white or not white and people have been using this distinction to define and rank others for thousands of years. The issues of racial profiling and stereotyping have become all too common around the world and Ross Gay makes it clear in his article entitled, “Some Thoughts on Mercy.” Gay discusses the relationship between African Americans and the police in America today. Basically, Gay, a professor at Indiana University, recounts a time in which he was wrongfully apprehended and physically brutalized by a police officer simply because of his skin color. Gay states that we “say, ‘Yeah, that’s just how it goes.’ Given what could’ve happened, I ought to be glad, right? I ought to get over it. But it is also the familiarity of it all (black guy has unpleasant run-in with the cops) that makes my experience, and the many thousands like it, almost invisible- which makes the significant daily terror of being a black or brown person in this country almost invisible” (Gay, 3). The true problem with racism is that it has become a system so intertwined with society that the suffering of minorities has become invisible and essentially accepted, until now. Overall, the Engelhard project encourages young minds like ours to not only connect living and learning, but also to foster one of Georgetown's most important Jesuit principles, cura personalis, or care for the person. In the pursuit of academic success and self-reflection, we, as a human race, can collectively end the culture of racism that plagues our very