Schooling and Culture

As demonstrated in class on Monday, the definition of race is a controversial topic because it is a social contrast. As Nathaniel Smith attempted to convey to his class, race is a conforming term that has been altered throughout time. Since the topic is so heavy, people to do not willingly engage in discussions about it. The conversation that Mr. Smith had in his class was similar to the one that we had in ours. One would think that students on a collegiate level would have more knowledge on the topic than high schools students, but that is not always the case. When we were asked to describe race, terms such as color, ancestry and culture came up. It is impossible to characterize “race” as one trait or gene. I thought it was interesting when one of the students went home to ask his grandmother what evidence she had to prove that they were white. The grandmother’s reaction unraveled her insecurities of not having an answer to her grandson’s question. How could one possibly know where their ancestry from generations and generations and generations ago came from? Reading this article reminded me of an episode on the Tyra banks show about race. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM2_w-m_UFs) To summarize what happened, Tyra did an experiment with her audience to see how people perceive race. They were given a group of women to examine and told to guess their race based on their appearance. All of the women were either biracial or multiracial, proving that you cannot identify one’s race by the exterior because the audience identified each contestant as one race. What was interesting to me was the young lady who was biracial (black and white). It was so sad to hear how she perceived people of her own kind, and for the fact that society deems us inferior. I did not understand how she would attempt to disclaim and speak so negatively on black people because she too at times has to go through the oppression. People see her appearance and automatically categorize her as black, as she claimed in her rodeo story. Instead of embracing her background and using her knowledge of black history to improve segregation, she uses it to further oppress the black community. Her story was just so contradictive and distressing, that I thought I should share it.
Another topic discussed in class, was the use of the N word. Heidi Tolentino explained to the class that “words that are historically used against a community in hate are often taken back by that community and turned around and used as words of power.” I totally disagree with people who agree and utilize this theory. It sounds ignorant to me, that people in the African American community would use a term filled with so much agony and oppression to refer to themselves. I understand the concept of “adopting” the word from the group of people who bestowed it onto us, but I believe that we need to use it as a foundation and not as a casual word to refer to each other. By that I mean that the word should not be forgotten. It should be remembered as a significant turning point for change in the black community (even though it is still used today) and not used at all by any group of people, regardless of its new meaning. When I was in fourth grade, we would often have periods of time where we would read a book as a class. The teacher allowed us to volunteer in taking turns to read aloud. One week, we started reading a new book and one of the white girls in the class raised her hand to read first. As she began reading she came across the word nigger and took a long pause. The teacher attempted to reassure her in saying that it was ok to say the word. She hesitated, but eventually whispered the word and continued reading. A few sentences later, the word reappeared. The same awkward pause came, but was ended with her telling the teacher that she was uncomfortable reading so she stopped. The N word had never been discussed in that class before, so clearly her parents or other family members educated her on its history and instructed her to never use the word. You could see in her face how uncomfortable she was just by looking at it. I could imagine her confusion when the teacher kept telling her that it was ok. This is exactly why these topics should not be danced around. Just like the student in the reading that asked why only black people were allowed to say it I am sure there are many other uneducated students that are curious and have questions that need to be answered. I don’t think that any student should have to feel uncomfortable in a teaching environment when they are supposed places of reassurance.