Reflective Essay: Ethnicity And Gender Differences

For the majority of my lifespan, I have been in a primarily Asian and white environment - in such aspects as neighborhoods, schools, and playgrounds. My mother and her family are white, while my older brother and I have black relatives. Since I grew up in a mixed household, I never had the tendency to judge or even acknowledge people of another or the same race. Even more so since I had always attended mostly Asian and white schools, I just found myself judging people on their morals and behaviors. I never took a persons' race or ethnicity into consideration. This was the sort of mindset I had until my freshman year in high school after I had moved from Quincy to Dorchester. As soon as I stepped into Dorchester Academy, a primarily …show more content…
Even now I feel as though there is more to it then that factor alone. While I was in Quincy (and Weymouth for one year), I had never seen a fight between students, I never smelt weed or cigarettes on my peers, I had never seen boys with their pants sagging and dragged across the floor wrapped around their ankles. This is not to say that all the students acted in such a way. In fact, I met my best friends from these schools and I couldn’t ask for better people to be around and guide me, but I can’t deny the obvious different experiences I’ve had during the last four years. When I ask one side why they believe things are the way they are, their answer consists of financial and academic issues, but when I ask the other side they claim it’s a financial and racial issue. It seems both sides are claiming this phenomenon to be a cause and effect.
I’ve been told that because I went to a white school, they had better supplies and got higher budgets compared to the black schools. I think otherwise to an extent - perhaps colonization had a hand, but we cannot exclude the individuality aspect that contributes to the bigger