#198: To 196: Being a white male myself from a low income background, its cool, but everyones experience is incredibly different. I couldnt really see it until I went back to the South with my girlfriend at the time who was of Indian, and raised in Georgia. Every other question was about her heritage or race, which was very annoying. There werent even segues in the conversation! Just a small lull and So... Asian descent? That was pretty crappy, but only a small part that I got to experience with her. Heres a more extreme example: For her work, she would do community outreach in rural parts of Alabama and would have to worry about not only prejudice, but her safety. Safety is one thing that I never think about except when deciding to wear a bike helmet. My glimpse into this experience was only a small sample of her life and lives of others growing up in the South where these issues are very, very real. So be proud of your friends because theyre your friends. Be proud to be at Stanford. But try to learn about others experiences when theyre not at Stanford. What is the real world like for others? Its pretty impossible to completely put yourself in others shoes, but try to get a glimpse and challenge your assumptions. Feel blessed for all the opportunities youve been given, but learn that some opportunities would not have been available to you had you not grown up where you did. About my experience: I grew up in the South in a predominantly white part. I never noticed the racism that was so prevalent because it was incredibly subtle at times, which is very frightening because its very easy to miss and easy to learn when youre growing up. For example we learned the word mixed race as mulatto in our History lessons. No one thought anything of it and that was just the word it was. It was not until an embarrassingly long amount of time later when someone corrected me. What I see often when I go home now is when watching tv in a bar or something and someone on the news is not white people joke about the way the person talks or laughs. Its very odd... The experience of civil rights happened all around us, but we only read it in text books and the community really sheltered itself from it. I had many friends who believed the south will rise again (Dumbasses in common parlance). I try to think that Im a little more well adjusted after a few years out of the South, but I still am learning about assumptions I hold and should challenge. In the end I love the South because its my home and the majority of people are loving and caring people, but I know it has its fair share of problems.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:27:40 +0000
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