Interesting Racial Experiences

5 Brave Women Share Their Racial Experiences

SHARON: "This did not necessarily happen to me but, it happened to my mother. My mother was attending my little 6 year old brother's kindergarten graduation ceremony with my 2 year old(Now 3 years old)little bother. Everyone had to pass through the security guard first before they could go into the graduation ceremony. The ages 2 years and under could go to the graduation ceremony without a graduation ticket. The security guard was a white man and seemed to be racist. He always had problems with black people. With I and my family being black, he had problems with us as well. My mom arrived at the security guard and because she was black, he started to have an argument with her and tried to find a way for her to not be able to get into the graduation ceremony. He started to argue with her about my 2 year old brother being too tall and said my mom was lying about his age. But my mom was giving him the correct information which is that he is actually 2 years old. He tried to make and excuse saying since she doesn't have a pass for him, she couldn't attend the graduation. The suprising thing is when a white woman came to the security guard, he let her go into the graduation ceremony with no questions asked, right in front of my mother's face. To me, it seems like he thinks all black people are bad people and that all black people are liars. It seems like he grew up knowing people put bad reputations on black people so, he decided to be unfair to black race. He acted normal and cool with white people and allowed them get away with bad things. Things like this is what people shouldn't think or do and it is things that we as humans should try to fix."

SRISHTI: "I was born in Mumbai, India and my family and I moved to Thousand Oaks, California when I was ten years old, to an entirely different country and culture. I was too young and innocent in order to predict the bullying and racial sterotyping I would have to experience in my new home. It began with others making comments about how I'm super smart and amazing at math, and eventually went to others asking me: "how do you know english?," and then proceeding to ridicule my accent and my pronunciation. My name was never pronounced correctly, even by teachers, who didn't care if they were saying "shrishta" or "shit-shi." Even seven years later, ignorant individuals who believe that India is home to poor, illiterate people who only know and speak a language called "hindu", ask me the same questions."

SAJDAH: I have experienced systematic racism my whole life. My community is not funded like the rich communities because of it. Most rich communities are made up of white people, and the poor communities are mostly made up of Black people. The reason why the rich communities have all the money and resources is another story, but this country has been known for stealing from the poor to give to the rich. My family isn’t “poor”, but we still don’t have the resources that poor white people have or other races of poor people. I live on the South Side of Chicago, and I have gone to the North Side in places such as Lincoln Park. When I compare the two, there are so many differences that have been there for decades. The rich suburbs and communities in Chicago have many resources such as Whole Foods and Apple store within a 0.5 mile radius whereas someone who lives in a poorer community (usually Black communities) has to travel at leas 5-10 miles to get to either. Until recently, my family had to travel down to the Whole Foods on Roosevelt to get our food; now, the new Whole Foods in Hyde Park is closer, but its still not like the rich communities. The schools in my area aren’t wealthy like the ones in the suburbs with middle schools bigger than my own high school. I’m very sure that many other people are affected by this problem heavily ingrained in the current U.S worse than I.

AMY:I’ve lived in Chicago my entire life, starting out in Albany Park. Once I was eleven years old, my family decided to move as a result of violence in the area as well as the desire to own a home. We moved to a quiet Mayfair neighborhood where I currently live with my mom, dad, my younger sister, Mia, and occasionally my older sisters Wendy and Diana. My parents have both always motivated my sisters and me to do our very best in school and it is because of them that I will attend a selective enrollment high school in the fall just like my older sisters. The process of applying to selective schools was difficult, and I imagine that it would be even more difficult when going to and underfunded school that doesn’t prepare you for high school enough. I believe that everyone should get the same opportunities and the same education.

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