How Embarrassing!
Because I am African, people have expected me to be less intelligent in school or in a professional environment.
One day in college, I had anatomy class on a Monday morning by 9:30am. I will not forget that day in my life, because I had never been humiliated in class before until that day. My colleagues and I were to engage in a discussion about Cells, and our professor divided us into groups of six, where one person from each group had to present for 5 minutes, the part of cell that was assigned. My group comprised of three females and three males. I was the only international student and uniquely African, every other student was white American.
We started our discussion on the nucleus, the topic assigned to us. During our analysis, only three of us were active, and the other three seemed less interested. My participation was observable, and because I had studied the previous day, I had confidence in my contribution, which led two of my colleagues to ask me how long I studied for the class. I smiled and answered, that I had studied for few hours the previous day. We were left with two minutes before it was time to agree …show more content…
I was done for the day and was on my way home. As I got into the train, I could not stop thinking of what had happened earlier in class. Though I heard stories about racism, I still could not get it off my mind because it was my first direct experience with racism. I called on my closest friend, we talked about my experience, and she consoled me saying she understood how I felt, and that is what most Africans and African Americans have to deal with, even though there has been a lot of progress made to fight racism, it still exists today. I said to her why can’t people understand that we are all belong to one race, the human race and no one should be judged just because they look different, talked different or behaved different from the other. I was bitter, my experience taught me a
Because I am African, people have expected me to be less intelligent in school or in a professional environment.
One day in college, I had anatomy class on a Monday morning by 9:30am. I will not forget that day in my life, because I had never been humiliated in class before until that day. My colleagues and I were to engage in a discussion about Cells, and our professor divided us into groups of six, where one person from each group had to present for 5 minutes, the part of cell that was assigned. My group comprised of three females and three males. I was the only international student and uniquely African, every other student was white American.
We started our discussion on the nucleus, the topic assigned to us. During our analysis, only three of us were active, and the other three seemed less interested. My participation was observable, and because I had studied the previous day, I had confidence in my contribution, which led two of my colleagues to ask me how long I studied for the class. I smiled and answered, that I had studied for few hours the previous day. We were left with two minutes before it was time to agree …show more content…
I was done for the day and was on my way home. As I got into the train, I could not stop thinking of what had happened earlier in class. Though I heard stories about racism, I still could not get it off my mind because it was my first direct experience with racism. I called on my closest friend, we talked about my experience, and she consoled me saying she understood how I felt, and that is what most Africans and African Americans have to deal with, even though there has been a lot of progress made to fight racism, it still exists today. I said to her why can’t people understand that we are all belong to one race, the human race and no one should be judged just because they look different, talked different or behaved different from the other. I was bitter, my experience taught me a