observations or questions on how/why to talk about race and racism with others
WARNING: extremely offensive, racist language is used while quoting someone else (as well as cursing) A few weeks ago, I was hanging out with a few friends and acquaintances – we were talking, laughing, and having a generally good time. We were sitting in a circle of various couches and chairs surrounding a coffee table. Then, someone at the party (let’s call this person J) got a text from another friend saying that a third …
This week’s class discussions were based mainly on the concept of white privilege. Although I understood the idea of white privilege before, the ways that we talked about it in class really opened my eyes to a lot of things I’ve never noticed. Every day, I benefit from white privilege in a number of ways. For example, I walk into each of my classes and am surrounded by people who not only look like me, …
In class we talked about how White people often times do not mention if a person they are talking about is Black, or will whisper the word Black and show discomfort if referencing a Black person. Over the weekend I witnessed this happen. My friend from home came to visit school. She was talking to somebody who shared mutual friends with her, and I heard her say “do you know Aaron, he’s uh you know …
I just heard that Annie is being remade and was very excited to watch the new trailer. Although I think Annie is not the best or most interesting musical, it has a happy ending and the songs are easy to sing along to. However, I was even more excited to see that Quvenzhané Wallis is playing the part of Annie! She is an extraordinarily talented actress, especially at such a young age. After a quick search …
Recently I came across a Humans of New York post about an elderly black man who talked about how far the issue of racism has come and how proud he is at the change. I tended to think that the older generation were the ones who still saw racism in places where the younger generation might look for another reason. Which has brought me back to the question which generation see racism most prominently? Is …
I read a quote recently that stated, “most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply”. I think that this mindset and outlook on conversation is incredibly pertinent to any discussion about race, and quite frankly any discussion about any topic. My generation has grown up in a world where we get immediate gratification and responses from instantaneous media and technology, and the art of listening has …
Some of you may have heard about, or even watched, the ESPN special on “The N-Word” that was shown on Outside the Lines. The hour long special invited influential African American athletes to discuss the word and its meaning, as well as younger student athletes. Bob Ley stated that the purpose of the special was to: “have an honest conversation about this word, which is on the third rail of American society.” He added: “We’re going …
I enjoy watching football every once in a while, especially when my favorite team – the Giants – is not sucking. Even though they weren’t playing the Super Bowl this year, I watched a little bit of the game and saw when the Seahawks won. I missed the very short interview that Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman had with Erin Andrews (a Fox News sports reporter), though, which was also apparently very news-worthy. Although the clip …
Something about our last conversation in contemporary racism was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew it had something to do with how we had discussed the low prejudice versus high prejudice participants in Hodson, et al (2002). We discussed how “high prejudiced” participants from a sample of college students really represents the “low prejudiced” end of the general American population. We discussed that this is due to college students …
Since I have been in this class, it is amazing to me how many things I see on social media sites that relate to everything we are talking about in class. This week I was browsing my Facebook news feed and I saw two posts, one after another, that completely shocked me. A woman, that goes to Muhlenberg, had a post that explained a recent experience with racism. Her post stated: “So I went to …
This week, I was browsing Buzzfeed instead of doing homework (as per usual), and I stumbled across an article/video about a “social experiment” done by two men: one black, one white. They parked their car on a public street and proceeded to fake break into the car and watch what happened. The white prankster tried for 30 minutes to break into the car, horn blaring, and nothing happened. A cop car even drove by and …
This week, a friend approached me with a news article from her hometown that she knew I’d be interested in. Upon reading it, I found that the ties to our class material could not be ignored. Chappaqua, New York is a wealthy town in Westchester county. Its citizens include former president Bill Clinton, along with many others who have large yearly incomes. The town, however, like most of Westchester county, is predominantly white. The lack …