Good Example Of Essay On Learning Racism And Prejudice

This response addresses a personal past shared meaning experience and my learning outcomes from the event. I grew up with a best friend who was “of colour.” I did not see her as being different because my parents taught me from before I can remember that “people are all the same.” I believed just because our skin, hair and eyes were different, it did not matter because for me that is what “the same” meant. Of course, that is until my friend went with our family to a family reunion.
When meeting my best friend, I watched as “my sister” became uncomfortable when extended family members greeted her with, “So, what country are you from?” or “What language do you speak?” or even “Wow that is a different kind of name.” While the answers in my head were England, English and it’s an English name, I became aware of how the environment around me rapidly changed from happy and excited to confused and sad and maybe a little angry.
I was angry that my parents had failed to teach me that my friend and I were different. I was confused because I still could not see how we were different. Now while this was a childhood experience, I have to say it remains the greatest learning experience of my life to date. As time has moved forward, my friend and I continue to develop and grown in our relationship and fortunately I have been able to learn how to see her through the eyes of racism and prejudice. This is not because I see her as different, but out of respect for her I have had to learn to see her “whole” life experience, not just my biased learned version. I consider the experience to be a successful one because it has shown me how both my parents and I, in our best parenting practices and childlike beliefs, ended up sadly and ironically perpetuating a “blindness” to cultural differences by not acknowledging these same differences. You see, it is funny to me that in making a conscious choice to not accept or participate in racist or prejudice beliefs we ended up becoming that which we so hoped to not be.