Fall 2013
My Thoughts about Race and Ethnicity Race and ethnicity is a very interesting topic to think about. The distinction between race and ethnicity is not always clear to a lot of people. To me race is your physical appearance and ethnicity is your cultural background. My race is white but my ethnicity is Irish and scottish. Although my race is white and someone who is polish might also be white our cultures are not the same. When you are asked to specify race/ethnicity on a form i think it is not fair because there are thousands of things you could potentially be that dont neccesarily fit into the small choice of boxes they give you. I think a lot of people don't know the difference because race and ethnicity are often listed together leading people to think that they are the same thing I don't think race and ethnicity should be an issue. Any one person no matter what background they are from was born and will die just the same. It is natural for people to want to group themselves with others who look, speak or behave in similar patterns. Essentially humans are animals and most animals are more comfortable with the familiar. Athough it is natural to group ourselves organically in this way, i dont think having to catogorize yourself into a group on forms and surveys is ever going to help anything. Throughout my life I've had a lot of contact with many different ethnicities and races. I went to school where the i was not part of the majority. I was one of the few white people in my class and it was a big issue for me then because being the minority i was treated differently. I was frequently called "the white girl" by my classmates. At first it bothered me but I became more comfortable. I think being the minority in school helped me learn how to get along with people from different backgrounds. My ability to get along with almost anyone i can attribute to my experience in school. I have also gained a soft spot for anyone getting treated differently for their race or ethnicity. I have heard friends and family make remarks about race but it isnt often that they are positive. A nearby neighborhood is going through a gentrification. The rents in the area have incresed leading people in the area to move into my neighborhood. The people moving in are mostly black and hispanic. Many people are attributing the rise in crime in the area to the people that have been migrating in. Before this migration the neighborhood was mostly Italian, Irish and german. I dont know what to think about this development but i hear a lot of predjudiced things being said that i dont agree with. I think most negative comments come from learned steriotypes. These things can be learned from family, friends or even the media. Many people have the potential to be predjudiced to a certain degree but for the most part i think it is a learned behavior. I believe in the future as races and ethnicities become more and more mixed that prejudice will decrese drastically. Any advantages of stressing these racial and ethnic issues i believe is to try to be fair. One of these advantages is the government requires some companies and schools to hire/accept a certain quota of minorities. This is good because it gives a lot of people opportunities that they might not have gotten because of someone being prejudiced against them. I also think it could be a litte unfair because someone more qualified might not get a spot because of these quotas. I think how you turn out socially, economically, and morally is attributed to your family. If you are from a rich family you are born knowing what having money is like and how to manage it. If you are born poor it is much more difficult to move out of the cycle of poverty. It is because of this that some people see minority communities in a bad light but i just think they are stuck in the cycle of povery. Minority families not so long ago were kept down by racism. Most politicians are prodominantly white at the moment. Once politics become more diverse i think the balance of wealth will begin to shift and ethnicity/race will become less important. Ethnicity and race is a topic of great interest to many people. It affects our laws, advertizing and a plethora of other things. I personally dont feel like it should matter at all what you are on the outside or what culture you have. We are all people and i hope one day that everyone can just treat everyone the same regardless of race or ethnicity.
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