Racial Terms Essays

Submitted By irisjazmin
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While thinking about what to discuss for my role in race, I started to reflect back on when I was in junior high. I felt like I didn’t fit in, even though I had been attending the same school for years I never felt accepted. I attended Robinson Junior High in Robinson, Texas a predominately “white” town and school. I was Mexican and I was placed in ESL as soon as I arrived at the school. Myself, personally I never felt different than anyone else. Yet I knew something was different, I looked different. I noticed not as many of the white girls were eager to befriend me or play with me, that was made clear very early on. Initially it hurt my feelings, I couldn’t help I looked different I just wanted to get along with everyone. I noticed I wasn’t alone; I started hanging out with other Mexican and black kids. After a while I began to see that this was normal, normal for us to be separated. I never once felt like anybody was being racist towards me, they just didn’t want to get to know me. Once I started to have all Hispanic friends, the white kids less a whole lot less likely to talk to me. I was sure once I became older it was because they felt uncomfortable. It was daunting I’m sure walking up as a white kid to a group of Hispanic kids. They had all assumed we were bad kids because of the ways my friends dressed. Why did all the minority kids group up together? Why was it easier to become friends with them? As an adult now, I feel the same way I did 10 years ago. I still feel like white people aren’t as willing to get to know me as other races. This is a socially constructed way of thinking, because it is not true. As the book explains (Part II Pg 124) “the stereotypes to which we are exposed to become the foundation for adult prejudices”. This is how racism and stereotypes get passed down from generation to generation. The understanding of race does not begin immediately, but happens in early childhood. As children we believe to all be the same, but we soon learn that we are different from all the other people in the world. We first notice what is different on the outside, and then we learn what is different on the inside. Although we learn about the inner and outer differences, we like to use the outer differences as our way to judge people. Just like stereotyping, we do not see the individual. We only see the outer side of the matter Racial identity can be defined on two ways, the way you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. We want to say that racism is a thing of the past but it’s hard to say whenever race is one of the first things we notice about someone. From there on we decide if we will like to try to get along with that person. According to the book, that is unfortunately the cold hard truth about race. Discussing my role of gender, as a female I have felt a few cases of discrimination. Some people will think I’m not very smart because I’m pretty or if I have knowledge about something a male is good in people are suspicious. For example I work at a place that does state inspections on cars and other repairs. As soon as customers come in as see two pretty ladies behind the counter they step back to see if it’s the right spot. Seeing
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