Race Relations

Professor:

Regarding the topic of race relations in my community.  Throughout my life I’ve lived within diverse communities. From the military base in Port Hueneme, the apartment building my mom, sister and I stayed in for a year in New Mexico, to where I’ve lived for quite some time now in Malden Massachusetts. For years I never really thought of skin color having any type of importance because I wasn’t brought up to believe how we looked was important in anyway shape or form. I’m thankful for all the communities I was raised in because they caused to me to be so open minded and loving to all of the different races. It wasn’t until 6^th grade in Melrose (a predominantly white city) where I realized that some people where prejudice against others due to their skin color this was also around the time where schools started going more in depth during black history month. Experiencing what I did during 6^th-7^th grade along with learning more about black history allowed me to realize that some people are very close minded and that made me sad because a lot of the time the people who were getting teased along with me were people who had amazing personalities and so much to give and the bullies were missing out on getting to really know some amazing human beings. But this experience caused me to accomplish many of the things that I have today and plan on accomplishing later on in life.

Attending Malden High school made it really easy to intermingle along with other races, I joined a lot of clubs that were full of a variety of races like key club and LGBT club. I also played lacrosse with my friend and we were surprisingly the first two African American girls to join the lacrosse team this pushed us to make the Malden high lacrosse team even more diverse. It first began as majority Caucasians then my friend Monica and I, then by our second year of LAX we were able to recruit new members from a variety of races making our team even better than it was before. There was no longer a divide in the team we all became one big family.

At home I try to teach my younger sister the way my mom taught me to love everyone the same. Especially now since I’ve recently learned that prejudice and racism are learned behaviors, and that no one is born hating another race. I definitely want to show my sister that everyone is equal and that no race is better than the other. I encourage her to play with everyone at the park and after school when I have the time to stay with her. I try to teach her to be just as kind and patient as my mother raised me to be, and to not push anyone away just because they’re different. It’s harder to instill those values in my other sister who is 14 due to the fact that she’s grown up in an age where on social media sites like Instagram for example there are pages dedicated to pro black activist who are using their platforms negatively. Although I agree and applaud the fact that they have raised awareness of the maltreatment of the people in the black community but they have done so by belittling all other races. Yes, they have succeeded in raising the black community up but they’ve also in the process instilled a mindset that we are the superior instead of using their platform to show people of the black community that yes there are injustices and yes the system is flawed and it may appear that the world is against. But with love, patience and most importantly peace in due time things will be better.

I hope in the future when I get to where I want to be in my career I can use my platform to educate the youth on equality, and show how to love not only themselves but to treat and love everyone the way they’d like to be treated.

Marlynda

12.19.2015 – Social Psychology