Separate Prom Research Paper

Picture a white 12 year old girl living in a rural town in Montana. She comes home from school and turns on the TV. The news is on and she sees that a black man has murdered someone on the Southside of Chicago. She immediately turns off the TV and thinks to herself “Black people are scary. I never want to be around them.” What she does not know is that a white man has just murdered someone in her very own town. However, the media will never report this, as she lives in a predominantly white state.
This is where it begins. A small glimpse at what one black person did was enough for this girl to form her opinion of an entire race. She will grow up to have a lack of knowledge and understanding of a race that is not her own. She has only ever …show more content…
In 1991, when it came time to plan their prom, the prom committee was made up of all white students. Thus, they hired a DJ and a band who would play their favorite songs. However, the black students at the school were not pleased. They did not feel that the prom would represent them or their culture. Because of this, black students decided to have their own, separate prom. Some white students were offended by this, stating that the majority should be able to make the prom decisions. One student stated, “They must have something against the school.” Dr. Morris, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, believes that this circumstance illustrates the larger struggle between majority and minority racial and ethnic groups. She says of the situation, "It is a kind of cultural arrogance. Not only do many not want to participate in other cultures, but they feel theirs is the culture, that theirs is very much American and what America is." The white students at Brother Rice had been a part of a majority all their lives. They were blissfully unaware of what it’s like to be part of a minority, and therefore made false and ignorant assumptions about the black students at their school. What the white students did not realize is that the black students wanted to feel included and represented. Many black people have not ever felt like they have the opportunity to make important decisions, as they are typically not the majority. Because of this, they feel oppressed, even if only triggered by one incident, like the Brother Rice prom. These small incidents add up, which leads to a lifetime of being discriminated against. At the Brother Rice prom, the white students assumed that the black students wanted to have a separate prom because the black students did not like them. In reality, the black students felt discriminated against because their