Marquita Flowers
My First Encounter: A Lasting Struggle
Do insecurities begin with our own fears or the fears people embed in us?
When I was seven years old I experienced my first racist encounter. My best friend, Jelori, and I were on the swings in the park right near my house having a good time. We saw a white older man with his presumed daughter walking towards the park where we were very excited at the thought of a possible new playmate. We were both surprised when the father of the girl approached us and said, “Get up and move.” I was stunned and politely asked, “Why” He responded, “You know your place now move my daughter wants to swing.” I looked at the young girl who appeared to be sweet and innocent but had the views of people who hate people like me. I felt the heat within begin to rise and I said, “No, she can wait in line like I had to.” With that he turned and walked away.
This incident scarred me as a young child and made me fully aware of the dissent some whites have against people of my complexion. It made me question if my race or culture was bad and what my people had done to deserve to be treated the way they were. It made me want to be lighter so I wouldn’t have to ever face another situation like that, it made me wonder if every white person I knew was going to accept me for who I was or judge me because of something I had no control over. It made me feel less than human and created an inferiority complex that until this day I still have not fully overcome.
Being surrounded by people of color until my freshman year of high school enabled me to avoid confronting my insecurities. But once I entered a predominantly white high school there was no escaping, I was forced to deal with the negative perceptions I held of white people. I never hated white people because I understood that not every white person was a racist but I liked to keep my distance from them as a way of protecting myself just incase they were racist. My form of de facto segregation was not only to give me a level of comfort but also provided me with a level of protection I thought I needed.
It was not until my reading of the Civil rights book were I learned of a study where young children’s perception of themselves were tested through a doll study, and asked questions such as “Give me the nice doll” or “the doll that is bad “. The results of this test were disturbing because even with African American students they choose the white doll in the test not the one that represented there culture. I found this disturbing because even when I was young I wanted to play with the white doll’s they were always portrayed as the coolest or the ones with the most material possessions. But looking beyond the reasons to blaming the media what does the action of young black children preferring to play with white doll’s really symbolize. Why didn’t those children choose the white doll when they asked, “which doll is the nice doll”? Is a sense of inferiority to whites felt by children as young as 3 years old and if it is how are African American’s with insecurity issues supposed to overcome those issues if they have been embedded in us since childhood? Are we ever going to be able to impinge the days where we were looked at as inferior by the white man?
I’ll close this essay with no definitive answer because there is no definitive answer. There is not one simple conclusion to answering the question of why blacks feel inferior or less than. There is no one answer for why even after years of having justice we still feel enslaved. There is no answer or solution to not allowing others fear of being overpowered effect us. There is no solution, there is no answer so is it ever possible to overcome?
Emmett Till
Murdered at 14 years old in Money, Mississippi. The spectacle surrounding Till's murder was one of the precipitating events leading to the Civil Rights Movement.
Friday, August 3, 2007
sami...
Samantha Frazier
In a time where Jim Crow was the law and whites had the power to get away with murder, racism was something that was both taught and experienced first hand by children both black and white. No matter what the race of a child is, in America especially, and in other countries, children become aware of their identity and ethnicity. Some feel that racial profiling comes from a nonstop recycling of old customs and practices that live on dormant in the back of the mind. It is the life lessons of every individual that they pass on to their children. People choose to ignore signs of racism and try to forget the hardships of past civil rights activists and live on. However children of all colors are able to identify and respond to racism at a young age and even question the experiences they’ve had.
There were about ninety five percent of black and Hispanic children attending my elementary school. I lived in Harlem my entire life, and when I had to leave my school a year early to attend middle school in the sixth grade, I was very upset. My first day of class was one I will never forget. I was afraid of the new school and being around the different kids. I remember that there were no more than about four black kids in the classroom with me. It bothered me to see for the first time that people looked at me differently because of the way that I talked and the things I wore to school. Some of the students thought it was cool, but others gave me funny looks and made me feel almost unaccepted. That was one of the first times I experienced any kind of racism and social disorder.
Because I was young and put in an element that I was very unfamiliar with, I decided to join a group of girls who were more like me and those who I could identify with more so. It was not until my third year at Manhattan East Middle School that I had finally learned how to participate and interact with students from unfamiliar cultures. By the time I was ready to go to high school I was used to being one of the only black girls around in many situations. When in high school I was put in a very similar environment, where the classes were mixed but there was still a very small number of black students in the same classes with me. By this time people had grown so used to being comfortable with stereotypes that they felt it necessary to ask questions that they thought were funny.
Urban youths tend to grasp the idea that a black student who speaks correct English talks white and an illiterate slang speaker “talks black.” I never paid any attention to this idea but when asked why I do not “talk black” I simply replied by saying, “I do not know much about color languages, I speak purple myself but orange is my native tongue.” Being educated in situations like this one helped me to face the reality of what people realistically think of black people. It also causes people to stop and think about what they have said just like the situation that occurred in The Sky is Gray where the young black man in the story chooses to question the people of the Jim Crow times by saying to a woman, “Don’t you believe the wind is pink?” Later when the woman said, “ And what color is the grass, honey?” the boy replied “Grass? Grass is black.” There is a great significance in the way a young man is able to stand out and draw attention to an idea that should be practiced by more black people. However many young people both now in the twenty first century and then in the Jim Crow age, were unable to stand up against the norm or understand the significance of the racism they encounter. Children are taught many things by their parents, but it is the actual experiences that they have that mold them into adults and set the standards for what they chose to pass on to their children. Although the important lessons learned by our parents at a young age stick with us when we grow older, children like Richard from “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” have to have many encounters with racial profiling and discrimination in order to grasp the concept of social order and acceptance. His first thoughts as a child were, “It was alright to throw cinders. The greatest harm a cinder could do was leaving a bruise. But broken bottles were dangerous; they left you cut, bleeding, and helpless.” After about nine life lessons on living Jim Crow and a situation were a white man on an elevator helped Richard, he says, “I evaded having to acknowledge his service, and in spite of adverse circumstances, salvaged a slender shred of personal pride.”
The young Richard, like myself, was unable to identify the seriousness of what he had done. When his mother punished him it was his first lesson in understanding that he had to watch everything that he did very carefully to survive. I too was unable to recognize the difference between myself and the majority of the students in the middle school and what it was that made me fear being like them. When Richard grew older and had more scary encounters with the white men telling him he was “lucky” to have gotten away with minor things, he was forced to learn how to function in his society even if it meant pretending to be happy and turning the other cheek when there was trouble.
Even though it is up to adults to make sure that children know what they need to know to survive, ultimately it is up to the child to experience certain things and then apply the lessons learned form past mistakes. Eventually children can teach themselves how to function in societies where every thing is not necessarily fair or equal, whether they live in our day or in the 1950’s.
In a time where Jim Crow was the law and whites had the power to get away with murder, racism was something that was both taught and experienced first hand by children both black and white. No matter what the race of a child is, in America especially, and in other countries, children become aware of their identity and ethnicity. Some feel that racial profiling comes from a nonstop recycling of old customs and practices that live on dormant in the back of the mind. It is the life lessons of every individual that they pass on to their children. People choose to ignore signs of racism and try to forget the hardships of past civil rights activists and live on. However children of all colors are able to identify and respond to racism at a young age and even question the experiences they’ve had.
There were about ninety five percent of black and Hispanic children attending my elementary school. I lived in Harlem my entire life, and when I had to leave my school a year early to attend middle school in the sixth grade, I was very upset. My first day of class was one I will never forget. I was afraid of the new school and being around the different kids. I remember that there were no more than about four black kids in the classroom with me. It bothered me to see for the first time that people looked at me differently because of the way that I talked and the things I wore to school. Some of the students thought it was cool, but others gave me funny looks and made me feel almost unaccepted. That was one of the first times I experienced any kind of racism and social disorder.
Because I was young and put in an element that I was very unfamiliar with, I decided to join a group of girls who were more like me and those who I could identify with more so. It was not until my third year at Manhattan East Middle School that I had finally learned how to participate and interact with students from unfamiliar cultures. By the time I was ready to go to high school I was used to being one of the only black girls around in many situations. When in high school I was put in a very similar environment, where the classes were mixed but there was still a very small number of black students in the same classes with me. By this time people had grown so used to being comfortable with stereotypes that they felt it necessary to ask questions that they thought were funny.
Urban youths tend to grasp the idea that a black student who speaks correct English talks white and an illiterate slang speaker “talks black.” I never paid any attention to this idea but when asked why I do not “talk black” I simply replied by saying, “I do not know much about color languages, I speak purple myself but orange is my native tongue.” Being educated in situations like this one helped me to face the reality of what people realistically think of black people. It also causes people to stop and think about what they have said just like the situation that occurred in The Sky is Gray where the young black man in the story chooses to question the people of the Jim Crow times by saying to a woman, “Don’t you believe the wind is pink?” Later when the woman said, “ And what color is the grass, honey?” the boy replied “Grass? Grass is black.” There is a great significance in the way a young man is able to stand out and draw attention to an idea that should be practiced by more black people. However many young people both now in the twenty first century and then in the Jim Crow age, were unable to stand up against the norm or understand the significance of the racism they encounter. Children are taught many things by their parents, but it is the actual experiences that they have that mold them into adults and set the standards for what they chose to pass on to their children. Although the important lessons learned by our parents at a young age stick with us when we grow older, children like Richard from “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” have to have many encounters with racial profiling and discrimination in order to grasp the concept of social order and acceptance. His first thoughts as a child were, “It was alright to throw cinders. The greatest harm a cinder could do was leaving a bruise. But broken bottles were dangerous; they left you cut, bleeding, and helpless.” After about nine life lessons on living Jim Crow and a situation were a white man on an elevator helped Richard, he says, “I evaded having to acknowledge his service, and in spite of adverse circumstances, salvaged a slender shred of personal pride.”
The young Richard, like myself, was unable to identify the seriousness of what he had done. When his mother punished him it was his first lesson in understanding that he had to watch everything that he did very carefully to survive. I too was unable to recognize the difference between myself and the majority of the students in the middle school and what it was that made me fear being like them. When Richard grew older and had more scary encounters with the white men telling him he was “lucky” to have gotten away with minor things, he was forced to learn how to function in his society even if it meant pretending to be happy and turning the other cheek when there was trouble.
Even though it is up to adults to make sure that children know what they need to know to survive, ultimately it is up to the child to experience certain things and then apply the lessons learned form past mistakes. Eventually children can teach themselves how to function in societies where every thing is not necessarily fair or equal, whether they live in our day or in the 1950’s.
my essay "break the chains"
As people grow up, they learn about their society and culture through observation and through personal experiences. One thing that everyone gains some knowledge of, regardless of the validity of the information, is race. People learn about the different stereotypes associated with different races that are either prevalent in their society or are one of the factors that somehow affect their society. The short story “The Sky is Gray” by Ernest J Gaines is set in a time in which stereotypes were a part of life; these stereotypes were often part of the reality of the characters in this story. Similarly, the stereotypes of my society were highlighted through the experiences that I lived during my stay at Carleton College. Without knowing, people make generalizations about a certain group of people and this assumption seems to affect their lives, even though they are unaware of the falsehood of their beliefs.
The thing that most people do when discussing another race is generalize. They assume a certain authority, so to speak, in order to criticize and classify people of other races. For example, one common stereotype about people of color is that they are never on time to an event; this idea is given the term Colored People Time (CPT). This stereotype is a criticism against people of color because it depicts them as irresponsible people. In “The Sky is Gray”, the characters have a stereotype of white people that seems to dominate their actions and everyday life. The characters in this story strongly believe that white people are superior and that white people live better off than any other race. This is a generalization because these characters classify all white people to have these certain qualities.
When I went to Carleton College, I made the same generalization that all white people had money. I assumed that their lives were much better than mine and that they were all much wealthier than I was, being that I was a Dominican girl from the Bronx borough. Growing up in a poverty stricken place, where everyone was either on welfare, section eight, or both, life seemed to be a struggle that only people of color had to face, since only people of color live in my community. I would observe how happy the white people on television were and that gave me the impression that this was the life that every white person lived: a life of happiness, satisfaction, and money. Never did it occur to me that there would be a white person that would suffer more poverty than people I had witnessed all of my life. My generalization of white people was somehow distorted and incorrect. I found that out when I met my rhetoric assistant. He was a white man who grew up in Alabama and had a different world to talk to me about.
The story “The Sky is Gray” can be compared to my experience in Carleton College because they are based on financial struggles that people face. In both stories, there was a mother that was struggling to make ends meet. The mom in “The Sky is Gray” tries to stretch her money so that there could be enough to pay for the dentist but also to buy some meat for the kids at home. She was more focused on necessity rather than luxury. A good example is illustrated when James and his mother are walking around the town. They were walking through a snowstorm but they had thin coats of low quality because there was no money to purchase better coats. It was more important, for the mother, to feed the children and pay the dentist instead of getting luxurious coats; at least they had coats, regardless of how thin they were. ‘”Some people ain’t [sic] got that—hard’s [sic] time is” (Gaines 88). This is similar to the way my rhetoric assistant lived because his mom had to make ends meet. She didn’t have money to buy luxurious items, or any items, but instead of having her kids starve, she went to get government help, also known as food stamps. Another similarity is that in both cases it is obvious that “it’s the poor who suffers the most” (Gaines 95). Neither family got what they wanted; they lived their life based on the circumstances that they faced daily. Instead of planning for the future of the children, for example, the mothers had to worry about their present. There was never a time when the mothers had savings for their children to go to school. The children only went to public school on certain days because the mothers needed to worry about their financial stability. The main character from “The Sky is Gray” missed some days of school because he had to take care of his siblings or help his mother around the house. My rhetoric assistant also had to do these things. Finally, in both stories, education was regarded as a way out of poverty. The college student in the story did not accept assumptions of being inferior; he decided that through educating himself, he would be liberated and live a satisfactory life. My rhetoric assistant also decided that the only way he was going to be satisfied was if he left his circumstances in the pursuit of an education. Even though he didn’t have the money to go to Carleton College, he did not accept the assumption that he would stay in his poor condition. He took advantage of the “need blind” policy of the school and he was given a lot of money to study. In both stories, the main characters were aware of generalizations made about them, but they did not allow themselves to be limited.
The differences between the stories help to show that generalizations about struggle are not necessarily true. One major difference between the stories is the racial backgrounds of the characters, who had to struggle. In “The Sky is Gray”, the people, who were struggling, were black and in my experience, the rhetoric assistant was white. The fact that the people struggling were from different races shows that associating a certain race with a certain income is incorrect. Not all black people are poor and not all white people are rich. This is a common misconception that people have since they live in a society that only shows one side of a story. There were many white students in the program who probably assumed that I would be poor since I am a person of color and because I live in a borough that is assumed to be poor. They later found out that it was not true. Living in a poor community does not necessarily make me poor and though my rhetoric assistant is white, it does not mean that he is rich. He worked hard for what he wanted. This is another difference between the stories. The college student just spoke about his ideas and he was only questioning his reality, while my rhetoric assistant was willing to change his reality. The college student would question his status and the belief of people around him but my rhetoric assistant took it one step further. It is as if my rhetoric assistant was living out the dream of the college student in the story by getting an education and changing his conditions. These two characters took different approaches to the misconceptions around them and that helped to either change or keep their lives the same way.
The generalizations that we make, regardless of how valid they are, end up affecting us in many ways. The thought that all black people are poor creates a feeling of inferiority for the black people. It makes them feel like they can never get anything in life because of the color of their skin. They felt like they had less opportunities, when in reality they did not; they were limiting themselves. For example, the preacher in “The Sky is Gray” engulfs the misconceptions of black people. He embraces them in such a way that he does not want to hear anything that would go against them. The college student tries to make the preacher question his status but instead, the preacher slaps him because he does not want to know. The preacher was limiting his knowledge by trying to “protect” the kid. He felt pity for the kid since the kid was thinking differently, when he should have had pity on himself since he was accepting the stereotypes imposed on him. Before arriving at Carleton College, I had the idea that I would be inferior to most of the people there because I had the misconception that they would all have more money than I did. I was limiting myself by not thinking that I would have anything to add to the class, when in reality I did. I grew up in a neighborhood quite different than they did and I had a different perspective on life, which would contribute to the class discussions. Instead of thinking that I would be inferior, I should have felt privileged because I got the opportunity to teach people about my community to distort their misconceptions of it. I was also getting an opportunity to learn more about writing which was a privilege on its own. We should not indulge in the stereotypes that are out there because they will only limit us from expanding our knowledge.
There are many ideas that people have when discussing something unknown to them. What people usually do in this circumstance is make generalizations instead of trying to change the stereotypes around them. In both “The Sky is Gray” by Ernest J. Gaines and my experience in Carleton College, generalizations and misconceptions were proven wrong. Not everything one thinks of another race is true. One should not always go by what society accepts as true because in doing so, an individual would be limiting himself or herself.
The thing that most people do when discussing another race is generalize. They assume a certain authority, so to speak, in order to criticize and classify people of other races. For example, one common stereotype about people of color is that they are never on time to an event; this idea is given the term Colored People Time (CPT). This stereotype is a criticism against people of color because it depicts them as irresponsible people. In “The Sky is Gray”, the characters have a stereotype of white people that seems to dominate their actions and everyday life. The characters in this story strongly believe that white people are superior and that white people live better off than any other race. This is a generalization because these characters classify all white people to have these certain qualities.
When I went to Carleton College, I made the same generalization that all white people had money. I assumed that their lives were much better than mine and that they were all much wealthier than I was, being that I was a Dominican girl from the Bronx borough. Growing up in a poverty stricken place, where everyone was either on welfare, section eight, or both, life seemed to be a struggle that only people of color had to face, since only people of color live in my community. I would observe how happy the white people on television were and that gave me the impression that this was the life that every white person lived: a life of happiness, satisfaction, and money. Never did it occur to me that there would be a white person that would suffer more poverty than people I had witnessed all of my life. My generalization of white people was somehow distorted and incorrect. I found that out when I met my rhetoric assistant. He was a white man who grew up in Alabama and had a different world to talk to me about.
The story “The Sky is Gray” can be compared to my experience in Carleton College because they are based on financial struggles that people face. In both stories, there was a mother that was struggling to make ends meet. The mom in “The Sky is Gray” tries to stretch her money so that there could be enough to pay for the dentist but also to buy some meat for the kids at home. She was more focused on necessity rather than luxury. A good example is illustrated when James and his mother are walking around the town. They were walking through a snowstorm but they had thin coats of low quality because there was no money to purchase better coats. It was more important, for the mother, to feed the children and pay the dentist instead of getting luxurious coats; at least they had coats, regardless of how thin they were. ‘”Some people ain’t [sic] got that—hard’s [sic] time is” (Gaines 88). This is similar to the way my rhetoric assistant lived because his mom had to make ends meet. She didn’t have money to buy luxurious items, or any items, but instead of having her kids starve, she went to get government help, also known as food stamps. Another similarity is that in both cases it is obvious that “it’s the poor who suffers the most” (Gaines 95). Neither family got what they wanted; they lived their life based on the circumstances that they faced daily. Instead of planning for the future of the children, for example, the mothers had to worry about their present. There was never a time when the mothers had savings for their children to go to school. The children only went to public school on certain days because the mothers needed to worry about their financial stability. The main character from “The Sky is Gray” missed some days of school because he had to take care of his siblings or help his mother around the house. My rhetoric assistant also had to do these things. Finally, in both stories, education was regarded as a way out of poverty. The college student in the story did not accept assumptions of being inferior; he decided that through educating himself, he would be liberated and live a satisfactory life. My rhetoric assistant also decided that the only way he was going to be satisfied was if he left his circumstances in the pursuit of an education. Even though he didn’t have the money to go to Carleton College, he did not accept the assumption that he would stay in his poor condition. He took advantage of the “need blind” policy of the school and he was given a lot of money to study. In both stories, the main characters were aware of generalizations made about them, but they did not allow themselves to be limited.
The differences between the stories help to show that generalizations about struggle are not necessarily true. One major difference between the stories is the racial backgrounds of the characters, who had to struggle. In “The Sky is Gray”, the people, who were struggling, were black and in my experience, the rhetoric assistant was white. The fact that the people struggling were from different races shows that associating a certain race with a certain income is incorrect. Not all black people are poor and not all white people are rich. This is a common misconception that people have since they live in a society that only shows one side of a story. There were many white students in the program who probably assumed that I would be poor since I am a person of color and because I live in a borough that is assumed to be poor. They later found out that it was not true. Living in a poor community does not necessarily make me poor and though my rhetoric assistant is white, it does not mean that he is rich. He worked hard for what he wanted. This is another difference between the stories. The college student just spoke about his ideas and he was only questioning his reality, while my rhetoric assistant was willing to change his reality. The college student would question his status and the belief of people around him but my rhetoric assistant took it one step further. It is as if my rhetoric assistant was living out the dream of the college student in the story by getting an education and changing his conditions. These two characters took different approaches to the misconceptions around them and that helped to either change or keep their lives the same way.
The generalizations that we make, regardless of how valid they are, end up affecting us in many ways. The thought that all black people are poor creates a feeling of inferiority for the black people. It makes them feel like they can never get anything in life because of the color of their skin. They felt like they had less opportunities, when in reality they did not; they were limiting themselves. For example, the preacher in “The Sky is Gray” engulfs the misconceptions of black people. He embraces them in such a way that he does not want to hear anything that would go against them. The college student tries to make the preacher question his status but instead, the preacher slaps him because he does not want to know. The preacher was limiting his knowledge by trying to “protect” the kid. He felt pity for the kid since the kid was thinking differently, when he should have had pity on himself since he was accepting the stereotypes imposed on him. Before arriving at Carleton College, I had the idea that I would be inferior to most of the people there because I had the misconception that they would all have more money than I did. I was limiting myself by not thinking that I would have anything to add to the class, when in reality I did. I grew up in a neighborhood quite different than they did and I had a different perspective on life, which would contribute to the class discussions. Instead of thinking that I would be inferior, I should have felt privileged because I got the opportunity to teach people about my community to distort their misconceptions of it. I was also getting an opportunity to learn more about writing which was a privilege on its own. We should not indulge in the stereotypes that are out there because they will only limit us from expanding our knowledge.
There are many ideas that people have when discussing something unknown to them. What people usually do in this circumstance is make generalizations instead of trying to change the stereotypes around them. In both “The Sky is Gray” by Ernest J. Gaines and my experience in Carleton College, generalizations and misconceptions were proven wrong. Not everything one thinks of another race is true. One should not always go by what society accepts as true because in doing so, an individual would be limiting himself or herself.
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