This past Summer I had the chance to travel around Peru and visit a variety of different historical sites. One of the places I visited was a beautiful estate on the southern cost, Hacienda San José. The property was nothing less than stunning, a grand entrance, a courtyard, a wraparound porch, a swimming pool, an impeccable lawn, and even a beautiful chapel. My guide told us many people rent out the estate for weddings or …
David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, narrowly reached the 5% voting support he needed to be considered a legitimate candidate for Senator of Louisiana. Although according to his numbers he doesn’t actually stand a chance in winning the seat, it’s horrifying to realize that a substantial number of people are voting for him. What’s even more disturbing is that he was now allowed to participate in the November 2nd debate which was …
Recently I was listening to an episode of the podcast About Race, a podcast where 3 hosts discuss current race issues in an open way. One of the hosts mentioned that black assimilation to white culture as a solution to race disparity is problematic. They looked at a specific study that showed that black people who moved to white middle-class neighborhoods before they were twelve had a “compound interest of awesomeness” where they were more …
My first interaction with the concept of segregated housing came in my freshman year from a friend of color on campus. They confided to me once, while discussing the topic of race, “Sometimes I wish there was housing just for the students of color…it’d be so nice to just have a place where you could chill with your people.” I was pretty taken aback with this concept, as the idea of outright segregation was something …
340 acres of freshly cut grass. 10,000 square foot mansion. Prep schools and carpool. Luxury cars on every street. Are you thinking the people that live in this community are rich? Do you think they’re white? So do I. However, rich, black people do exist and are even are part of the 1%. But, it’s a very lonely few. In 2013, to be considered part of the 1%, it requires a household net worth of …
“I have nothing against Black people. My coworker is Black and he speaks and dresses very well. He acts White. It’s the ones that walk around with their boxers out that I don’t like.” We’ve all heard someone say something like this at some point. One of my best friend’s Dad used to make comments like this all the time, and while it always made me somewhat uncomfortable, I never understood the extent of just …
Dr. Derald Wing Sue defines microaggressions as, “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership” (Sue, 2010). Sue divides the different types of microaggressions into three main categories – microinsults, microassaults, and microinvalidations. While microassaults tend to be conscious, microinsults and microinvalidations are usually unconscious discriminatory acts or verbalizations. While all microaggressions are detrimental to the well-beings of members of minority groups, microinvalidations are thought to be the …
I grew up in a mostly-white suburban town. However, I was a part of the musical Once On This Island multiple times. The premise of this musical is that there is a peasant girl (who was traditionally played by a black, female actor) who falls in love with a rich man (traditionally played by a white, male actor). The entire show centers around how these two very different worlds are not allowed to associate and talk to …
I sit down every Wednesday to watch a new show called Designated Survivor. The show revolves around the idea of the designated survivor: the person the government picks to stay home when holding the State of the Union address at the capitol. The reasoning behind the idea of having a designated survivor is in case something were to happen to all three cabinets of the government during the address, there is someone to take over …
Every semester, the theatre department at Muhlenberg College requires students taking certain theatre classes to see a production off campus. The Pulitzer Prize winning play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar at Princeton’s the McCarter Theater was chosen as that production for this semester. It was critically acclaimed when it premiered on Broadway and I was very excited to see it because I had not previously read the play before. Everything that occurred on stage came as …
The amount of white people who are too engulfed in their white privilege to see the prevalence of racism is frightening. Whether that racism is on a blatant, subtle, individualized or institutionalized level, it’s there, and people need to start realizing it so that we can work towards decreasing it. Just the other day I opened up Facebook to see that someone had posted a news article about a high school teacher in Norman, Oklahoma …
I drive three hours almost every weekend to go home to my family, and lately I’ve been listening to podcasts to help pass the time, namely RadioLab. I came across an episode from season five simply titled “Race.” There are a lot of interesting stories featured under this topic, but one in particular has kept me thinking long after listening to it. There has been this trend circling around the internet where people reveal the …