Color Blind
Destiny English
PAS 115
T TH 9:30-10:45
10-8-12
Color Blind Over the summer I joined a nonprofit organization to help send kids that live in poor neighborhoods to camp. The age group was from the age of fourteen to seventeen years old. Each person was responsible for raising four hundred dollars. The camp is a few minutes away from Big Bear. We the volunteers had ten weeks of training on a college campus. I was excited to be a camp specialist helping with programs and watching over the kids. After my first meeting for training I noticed that I was the only student from a different school; also I was the only black student there. I wondered the entire ten weeks if anyone had noticed that I was the only black student in our group of sixty people. I was sure that they would have notice after spending so much time together during training. When we had our onsite orientation at the campsite I was pared with some of the volunteers I was close to. As we talked about the excitement of being at camp, they finally noticed that I was the only black volunteer. I did not know why it took so long. I thought to myself that they did not really care or it was so obvious that no one really had to say anything. The volunteers said that it was obvious so it did not need to be expressed. At the beginning of the week at camp some volunteers did not recognize me. They mistook me as one of the campers even though we went through training for ten weeks with them. They should have recognized me. As the week went on they began to recognize me as a volunteer. I feel that they recognized me during training because I was the token black girl in the group, and then when the group of minorities that contained a lot of dark skinned kids came they had difficulty pointing me out. In the essay Helping and Hating the Homeless, the author, Peter Marin, explained how people assume that others are apart of a social group because of the way they look. He gave examples on how society think
PAS 115
T TH 9:30-10:45
10-8-12
Color Blind Over the summer I joined a nonprofit organization to help send kids that live in poor neighborhoods to camp. The age group was from the age of fourteen to seventeen years old. Each person was responsible for raising four hundred dollars. The camp is a few minutes away from Big Bear. We the volunteers had ten weeks of training on a college campus. I was excited to be a camp specialist helping with programs and watching over the kids. After my first meeting for training I noticed that I was the only student from a different school; also I was the only black student there. I wondered the entire ten weeks if anyone had noticed that I was the only black student in our group of sixty people. I was sure that they would have notice after spending so much time together during training. When we had our onsite orientation at the campsite I was pared with some of the volunteers I was close to. As we talked about the excitement of being at camp, they finally noticed that I was the only black volunteer. I did not know why it took so long. I thought to myself that they did not really care or it was so obvious that no one really had to say anything. The volunteers said that it was obvious so it did not need to be expressed. At the beginning of the week at camp some volunteers did not recognize me. They mistook me as one of the campers even though we went through training for ten weeks with them. They should have recognized me. As the week went on they began to recognize me as a volunteer. I feel that they recognized me during training because I was the token black girl in the group, and then when the group of minorities that contained a lot of dark skinned kids came they had difficulty pointing me out. In the essay Helping and Hating the Homeless, the author, Peter Marin, explained how people assume that others are apart of a social group because of the way they look. He gave examples on how society think
Cited: Peter Marin. “Helping and Hating the Homeless.” Beyound Borders.Ed. Randall Bass and Joy Young. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003. 167-179. Print