Think Piece #1

Privilege, Power and Difference Think Piece

As a young white male I have noticed that some races get treated better than others, not on all instances in one of my schools I went to, I recall a time when a older teachers aid would pay closer attention to the children of different races more closely always yelling at my friend Kimani and Jacob. She would always give tickets to the prize drawing to mostly white students when I initially took notice I asked my mom why this was like that, she said it occurred even when she was young and this is when I first was told that people didn’t like people based solely on the color of their skin or because there not the same religion. Growing up my great uncle is gay and there was always a sense of tension when my younger cousin found out what that mean’t my father and I were really close with him so I was taught to love him no matter what he was. I say taught because a lot of what goes on through racial, religious and sexual differences are taught from generations.

Through this book Mr. Johnson not only elaborates on issues such as race and sexuality barriers but also barriers like Gender. The exercise we did in class for SCWAMP really opens eyes to the types of hurdles faced by Women, Gay/Lesbian, Colored and religious biases. We grow up learning in history classes about these “Great Men” , but were never taught the terrible ways and things Columbus used to do to the first nations who lived on Hispaniola who would come up short on his gold demands. As a history teacher I’m a firm believer in if you want to learn real authentic history it is to learn all sides of the story not just His-story but her-story and their-story. McGraw and hill a few years back made an error which they thought they were being politically correct by calling the african slaves “African workers” who came here to work. This is in no way shape or form correct. Africans were forced here they didn’t want to leave, this error was huge. Like Allan G. Johnson said best people fear what they don’t know because of what they heard from racist ancestors and friends past down. Rodney King said “Can’t we all just get along?” I strongly think that this will only happen if people at a young age are taught we are all friends. we have to come up with ways to show we all are human and bleed the same color no matter gender, color or orientation.

Johnson talks about feeling comfortable around one another, like the whole locking of doors around certain people or in a place where you know a certain demographic lives like being jumpy around people and you can relate to these things because you notice this here in Providence that happens. The part where he explains how women park closer to the door like for instance the mall my grandmother mother and girlfriend always take that into consideration when going out as well as having the keys out. They would prefer to go out with some company and not just alone because they fear something is going to happen. I like the fact that Allan G. Johnson Points out that it isn’t just a colored persons problem or a family in poverty’s problem its everyones problem the Elephant as a society is everyones problem. We can’t just limit it to a gender or a specific group we have to all except and fix this together. The Problem is White males aren’t willing to leave the comfort zone were on to confront this issue. I for one am willing to and I could probably find a couple more, but I’m sure those rich white folk in Barrington  would say “for what they don’t pertain to us so why should we care.” It all starts as young children we have to teach them as early as possible and the parents have to be engaged as well to have some one to look up to at home as well as at school.