Humans have been given the gifts of our senses to make life better. So why do we pretend not to hear that man being cursed out for the one thing he can’t control: his skin color. So many of us see racism happen at least once in our life but how many move to try and stop it? Not many. When we engage in Courageous Conversations we can address the issues of racism by breaking down the metal barrier that forces us to want to ignore it.
This Courageous Conversations project in Coach Clark’s Class helped me realize not everyone can accept and love people for who they are. There are levels of being able to accept other people's culture and race called “The Cultural Proficiency Continuum.” On this continuum there are six levels of proficiency. Starting at Cultural Destructiveness and ending in Cultural Proficiency.
At Brookdale Retirement Home a lot of the residents are around the Cultural Blindness area. However the woman we were interviewing was more in between Cultural Incapacity and Cultural Blindness. While interviewing her I had two partners, Albany Scott and Carson Daybell. The woman had no recollection of any problems between Caucasian and African American people. At the end of the end of our interview she turned to Albany and used a racist slur to describe her. This shocked me because she had seemed like a sweet lady. I had to realize she was, she didn’t know any better. Furthermore none of us corrected her, which we should have and I don’t know why we didn’t.
It could very well be attributed to institutionalized racism. Institutional racism is a pattern of social institutions (such as governmental organizations, schools, banks, and courts of law) giving negative treatment to a group of people based on their race. For example, Slavery. When slavery started white low class men intermingled, they sang and drank together. However when the ranks of slaves got too high they assigned white workers to have control over the african workers establishing a sense of dominance and power.
It was interesting to hear how no one saw any issues with race though through media and history we have many reasons to question ourselves. Dark skin, light skin, music, eyes, and people are all robust flavors adding to the flavorful stew of humanity. Enjoy it with your smell and taste. See the different cultures and honor them for all the things they add to your life. If you hear and injustice use the voice you were gifted by whatever is out there and speak up, not sit down.
This Courageous Conversations project in Coach Clark’s Class helped me realize not everyone can accept and love people for who they are. There are levels of being able to accept other people's culture and race called “The Cultural Proficiency Continuum.” On this continuum there are six levels of proficiency. Starting at Cultural Destructiveness and ending in Cultural Proficiency.
At Brookdale Retirement Home a lot of the residents are around the Cultural Blindness area. However the woman we were interviewing was more in between Cultural Incapacity and Cultural Blindness. While interviewing her I had two partners, Albany Scott and Carson Daybell. The woman had no recollection of any problems between Caucasian and African American people. At the end of the end of our interview she turned to Albany and used a racist slur to describe her. This shocked me because she had seemed like a sweet lady. I had to realize she was, she didn’t know any better. Furthermore none of us corrected her, which we should have and I don’t know why we didn’t.
It could very well be attributed to institutionalized racism. Institutional racism is a pattern of social institutions (such as governmental organizations, schools, banks, and courts of law) giving negative treatment to a group of people based on their race. For example, Slavery. When slavery started white low class men intermingled, they sang and drank together. However when the ranks of slaves got too high they assigned white workers to have control over the african workers establishing a sense of dominance and power.
It was interesting to hear how no one saw any issues with race though through media and history we have many reasons to question ourselves. Dark skin, light skin, music, eyes, and people are all robust flavors adding to the flavorful stew of humanity. Enjoy it with your smell and taste. See the different cultures and honor them for all the things they add to your life. If you hear and injustice use the voice you were gifted by whatever is out there and speak up, not sit down.