Other's Races example essay topic

Double Edged Sword English 101 D Joe Safdie July 29, 2002 I was fortunate to grow up with adults who displayed little or no prejudice toward any other race or culture. I didn't realize how fortunate I was until I married my African-American husband and had our first child. Today I have come to believe that inter-city sociology is a double-edged sword. Therefore, when my daughter Kendall was born, race struck me as something to be concerned about.

While filling out an official government document, a question asked, "what is your child's ethnicity?" I contemplated this for a little while, and then decided to answer honestly. I marked African American, Native American, English, Swedish and looks Hispanic. I still wonder what they did with that information. These questions upset me and I now choose to ignore them whenever I can.

So when my family moved to Mountlake Terrace, Washington. I encountered my first experience with a family of a different race. In my neighborhood there was only one minority family that I was aware of, (who were African-American). The youngest boy in the family was named Paris. We didn't know each other that well, but saw one another occasionally and at times played with the same friends. What I remember most is that I had a crush on this boy.

He was ten and I was nine. He had a great smile and the cutest dimples. However, something odd happened the summer that I turned ten. One afternoon when I approached Paris's house, I saw two police cars parked in the driveway. I overheard two neighbors talking, "I think it was because of a dispute with one of the families who live next door to them".

I chose to stay away for a while. It must have been a long while because when I went back to see Paris and his family, they had packed up and moved. Our budding relationship had been cut short. It felt like our neighborhood had received a "vaccination" to do away with our only exposure to a culture outside our own. After the years of living in Mountlake Terrace, I have chosen to associate predominantly with people who are of a different ethnicity than my own. However, I can't help but feel a little concerned for my safety at times when walking in front of a group of rowdy young men who are not white.

If they were white and still just as rowdy, would I be as concerned? Sadly, I honestly think not. Just as Reverend Jesse Jackson has stated", African- Americans and Hispanics are projected in photographs in five deadly ways. They are projected as less intelligent, less hardworking and more violent". The media assists us in painting lasting pictures in our minds of whatever they decide they want us to see.

It is up to us to treat each other with dignity and respect as individuals and to educate ourselves to understand what others have to go through on a daily basis. It seems to me that metropolitan areas have more opportunities to learn about each other's races. What is race anyway? For that matter, what is white? I personally don't think that there is such a thing. Who is considered whiter?

A Englishman or a German? Who is considered blacker? A Fijian or an Ethiopian? Is a Philippine considered being more Asian than a Chinese? To say you are Asian or African pertains to the area of the world you are from. Not the color of the skin.

Unlike when I was in high school, the next ten years when my children are in school they will be considered the majority and white will be the minority. Maybe this will help us to see each other as individuals and not black or white. I don't believe this nation will ever come to terms with its prejudicial problems until we can all accept that there is a little of all of us, in all of us. What is race anyway?