Personal Narrative: Oppression Of Black Women

Growing up in America is always hard but it’s especially hard to grow up in America while being black. When I look in the mirror I see a 6-ft. dark skin male who’s just trying to make it in a world full of oppression, discrimination, and prejudice; but when others that are not African American look at me, they might see a potential threat that’s not there. When people look at me, they judge me based off my appearance and with everything that’s going on in the news with the killings of black males and females in America, it is scary to be me. My mother would always tell me to be a black male in America is a dangerous thing and to always be careful of my surroundings because she doesn’t want to wake up one day to see her son TV dead. I went through …show more content…
I had shed the assimilated skin I had on for years and now I want to be more involved in my culture and learn more about the struggle that my people went through to make a better life for me. I was reading this article and they mentioned how they felt that it was necessary but futile for blacks to assimilate, but I feel that in America blacks do have to assimilate to make it in America. Black women in America can’t even wear certain hairstyles if they want to get a job, and white men in America usually are always picked for the job over black men and that’s what gives us little black boys the thought process that we’re not good enough. Growing up being black and being my size, I knew I had to make a difference, I knew I couldn’t be a stereotype so I decided to go to college and make a difference in my community. Talking to friends and family I concluded that going to college is always a maybe in a black home, it’s never a sure thing and that’s what I want to change. When counselors ask, black kids are they thinking about college instead of saying I don’t know yet or I don’t have the money, I want them to say yes they are going to college with their head held high. Without basketball, I don’t know if I would be in college today, but I wake up every day and appreciate the fact that I was given the opportunity to come to college while also doing something I love. Whenever I think about my life growing up now, I think about how much white privilege there was in the world that I didn’t catch onto until now. For example, IVY league universities. Even though people mention how they select a good number of minorities to make up for affirmative action but still white people still have the privilege to get into a lot of the schools that black kids like me used to dream