B
In the past two days I have encountered so much blatant racism...
Last Wednesday at work (I work as a lifeguard) some kids came into the pool during lap swim. Usually we only get adults that swim or do aqua jogging, but the kids (four of them, between the ages of 12 and 15) were behaving and doing laps with their kickboards. There are six lanes, and they were only taking up one for the four of them. This woman comes up to me and says "I want those kids out. I pay a lot of money to be here and I shouldn't have to put up with this. There just isn't enough space for them." Well, there were only two people in each of the other lanes, so I told her that if more people came in and it got to be too much of a problem I'd say something. I asked if they were disturbing her, and she said "no, it's a space issue." The kids saw this woman talking to me and figured I was going to kick them out. I wasn't. It was a hot day, so I just told them to make sure they were serious when they were there. They were very polite and well-behaved; I figured that if they're in the rec. center, then they have just as much a right to be there as she does because they pay too. The woman huffed back to her lane and for the rest of the time she was there gave those kids looks like you wouldn't believe! I got a few too, but not nearly as many. The kids were African American. It was clearly a racism issue.
The next incident? Last Thursday I was in my history class; class hadn't started yet. This girl in the back of the room was talking rather loudly about some guy she dated, and said "yeah, I dated this guy once who had red hair and freckles, but his skin was darker...but his brother (get this) looked more like a person; like an everydya person." Looked more like a person?! What is that? Then, during our break, another girl behind me was talking to her friend. She was talking about where she was from (Tri-cities, WA), and made some comments I couldn't believe. She was talking about people from another one of the tri-cities and said "That city is made up of a bunch of uneducated immigrants from all over with no direction and no goals. The only reason these people are here is because they're cheap labor; they work on the farms...I mean, honestly, that place is a ghetto. We didn't talk to them. I don't associate with people like that." WHOA! Being from a migrant farmworking town myself, I wanted to turn around and say something, but she didn't know I'd been listening, so I didn't say anything. But get this, 20 minutes later we were talking about British colonization in Africa, and she raises her hand and says "I can't believe racism still exists. Superiority is sad." The contradiction there is just...wow. Having the experience of being a minority, perhaps I'm being too harsh by being so aggrevated by this, but the reason we still have racism is because people take an ethnocentric attitude towards others. They establish the barriers, and often don't recognize it in themselves. The hardest thing is that there isn't much that can be done about people's prejudices. They have to bring themselves out of them. It just makes me so mad to see someone judge like that.
On another note, last week I went to an academic salon and there was a person sitting next to me that I was intrigued by. But I didn't say "hi;" probably because I was more worried about where the conversation would go than starting it. Now I'm kicking myself for not speaking up. Another "what if..."
Last Wednesday at work (I work as a lifeguard) some kids came into the pool during lap swim. Usually we only get adults that swim or do aqua jogging, but the kids (four of them, between the ages of 12 and 15) were behaving and doing laps with their kickboards. There are six lanes, and they were only taking up one for the four of them. This woman comes up to me and says "I want those kids out. I pay a lot of money to be here and I shouldn't have to put up with this. There just isn't enough space for them." Well, there were only two people in each of the other lanes, so I told her that if more people came in and it got to be too much of a problem I'd say something. I asked if they were disturbing her, and she said "no, it's a space issue." The kids saw this woman talking to me and figured I was going to kick them out. I wasn't. It was a hot day, so I just told them to make sure they were serious when they were there. They were very polite and well-behaved; I figured that if they're in the rec. center, then they have just as much a right to be there as she does because they pay too. The woman huffed back to her lane and for the rest of the time she was there gave those kids looks like you wouldn't believe! I got a few too, but not nearly as many. The kids were African American. It was clearly a racism issue.
The next incident? Last Thursday I was in my history class; class hadn't started yet. This girl in the back of the room was talking rather loudly about some guy she dated, and said "yeah, I dated this guy once who had red hair and freckles, but his skin was darker...but his brother (get this) looked more like a person; like an everydya person." Looked more like a person?! What is that? Then, during our break, another girl behind me was talking to her friend. She was talking about where she was from (Tri-cities, WA), and made some comments I couldn't believe. She was talking about people from another one of the tri-cities and said "That city is made up of a bunch of uneducated immigrants from all over with no direction and no goals. The only reason these people are here is because they're cheap labor; they work on the farms...I mean, honestly, that place is a ghetto. We didn't talk to them. I don't associate with people like that." WHOA! Being from a migrant farmworking town myself, I wanted to turn around and say something, but she didn't know I'd been listening, so I didn't say anything. But get this, 20 minutes later we were talking about British colonization in Africa, and she raises her hand and says "I can't believe racism still exists. Superiority is sad." The contradiction there is just...wow. Having the experience of being a minority, perhaps I'm being too harsh by being so aggrevated by this, but the reason we still have racism is because people take an ethnocentric attitude towards others. They establish the barriers, and often don't recognize it in themselves. The hardest thing is that there isn't much that can be done about people's prejudices. They have to bring themselves out of them. It just makes me so mad to see someone judge like that.
On another note, last week I went to an academic salon and there was a person sitting next to me that I was intrigued by. But I didn't say "hi;" probably because I was more worried about where the conversation would go than starting it. Now I'm kicking myself for not speaking up. Another "what if..."
