Personal Essay: Prejudice
Personal Essay: Prejudice
I. BACKGROUND
The location was a moderate to large size city near the east coast of
Massachusetts. The city has a mix of all races and is diverse in its racial distribution. It is a city where most of the people are middle class working folks. While it is a moderate size city, it has few city problems such as homelessness, poverty and violence.
The year was 1992 and it was the summertime. It was very hot and humid at about 11:30 at night and I was in a car driving around looking for something to do. It was a boring Tuesday night so I decided to go to a big video arcade hangout called Funworld. There is a number of video games as well as young people. The establishment is a large building with a large parking lot.
I was with three other people in the parking lot when we were approached by a group of three other gentlemen. I myself am a caucasian male under 21 years of age. Two of the people I was with were upperclass caucasian males also under the age of 21. The last person was also under 21 and male, but he was
African-American. One of the caucasians was a close friend and another was an acquaintance. The African-American was also a friend of mine. Of the three gentlemen that approached us, two were hispanic males that appeared to be over
21 and the other was a caucasian male that appeared over 21, although I couldn't be sure. Although I didn't want to make any judgements about them, they looked as if they were poorly dressed and over 21. So I deduced that they were in a gang or they were drug dealers, high school dropouts, etc.;.
II.ACTION
At first it appeared as if both groups would just pass by each other unnoticed but the caucasian male in the other group made a racist remark about my African-American friend. He said "Look at those dumb dudes walking with that fucking spade". My African-American Dave turned around suddenly and said "What the fuck did you say?" The caucasian male retorted "None of your
I. BACKGROUND
The location was a moderate to large size city near the east coast of
Massachusetts. The city has a mix of all races and is diverse in its racial distribution. It is a city where most of the people are middle class working folks. While it is a moderate size city, it has few city problems such as homelessness, poverty and violence.
The year was 1992 and it was the summertime. It was very hot and humid at about 11:30 at night and I was in a car driving around looking for something to do. It was a boring Tuesday night so I decided to go to a big video arcade hangout called Funworld. There is a number of video games as well as young people. The establishment is a large building with a large parking lot.
I was with three other people in the parking lot when we were approached by a group of three other gentlemen. I myself am a caucasian male under 21 years of age. Two of the people I was with were upperclass caucasian males also under the age of 21. The last person was also under 21 and male, but he was
African-American. One of the caucasians was a close friend and another was an acquaintance. The African-American was also a friend of mine. Of the three gentlemen that approached us, two were hispanic males that appeared to be over
21 and the other was a caucasian male that appeared over 21, although I couldn't be sure. Although I didn't want to make any judgements about them, they looked as if they were poorly dressed and over 21. So I deduced that they were in a gang or they were drug dealers, high school dropouts, etc.;.
II.ACTION
At first it appeared as if both groups would just pass by each other unnoticed but the caucasian male in the other group made a racist remark about my African-American friend. He said "Look at those dumb dudes walking with that fucking spade". My African-American Dave turned around suddenly and said "What the fuck did you say?" The caucasian male retorted "None of your