Race Does Not Limit Your Destination(Final Essay Draft)

Has it ever occurred to you that race has anything to do with the way we limit ourselves to certain things in life? Do you think that race has a big impact on your life and what you become? I’ve always happened to think that because of my race there would be a limit to what I could do but I never put myself down because I thought this way. The summer after I turned sixteen I got admitted to attend Choate Rosemary Hall, a very prestigious boarding school in Wallingford, CT. Stereotypically enough I thought that only people who belonged to the white race were privileged enough to attend a school like this because they are seen as superior in America and they are said to be very wealthy. In fact this is what scared me the most to be the one person out of the few to be on scholarship and to be of a middle class income around these people so different from me.
My experience at Choate Rosemary Hall enabled me to learn how unimportant race really is and that we as minorities of color tend to limit ourselves too much because of what we are. I’m not of white descent and my family is not wealthy at all. They just happened to have enough income to live a decent life. Yet there I was sitting in the same place of someone that from way back in history has been said to be superior and better than any other race. This is where I began to realize that your race does not affect where you go and what you do in life.
This is why it really disturbed me when in Richard Wright’s story, ”The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,” a white man expresses himself in such a way that was really disrespectful towards a young black man that was working in the same work environment. When the boy tried to get help from this guy because he was new at the job this man responded, “Nigger, you think you’re white, don’t you?” How do you say this to someone who is clearly as capable as you are just because he is of a different ethnicity? How are you too black to do something? It was just an irrational response, which shows how ignorant some people can be, specifically during the Jim Crow Era. How do you define capability by color or race? I never understood that. What you’re able to do is something that has nothing to do with your race; it has to do more with your skills, motivation, and the qualities you have to offer.
Wright’s experience in this story is very similar to my experience at Choate Rosemary Hall. My way of thinking is all in my personal mentality but this boy was forced to live in this mentality; this was reality to him. He was forced to live by rules that encouraged people to think a certain way about the black and white populations. The Jim Crow laws of segregation created differences between these two races and therefore created this idea that blacks were better than whites. No one at that time looked at the qualities that these black people had to offer. They were instead denied their human rights as citizens of the United States of America just based on their skin color.
Today, living in the 21st century, we don’t have to face these difficulties as far as segregation laws are considered. But the reality is we still feel inferior. I created the thought that because of my race I wouldn’t be permitted to enter anywhere the standards were too high. Both the main character of this story and I were put in a situation were we felt scared of the reality we had to face while feeling proud of showing every person of color that it’s possible to do what seems unattainable.
We minorities have a fear of working to our fullest potential because we think we’re going to be deceived or turned down by the white race. It’s scary how, until this day, this remains our automatic response to everything that seems out of our circle of life. We tend to limit what we can do and question our capability because we are always so focused on how others see our race. Race does not limit our destination; we do. Humans were not created of different colors to be categorized as failures or superior in life. We need to get over this ignorance and show the world that we can be as successful as every white person in this world.