Ethnicity Diversity Issues

Throughout this semester, we have been studying about many different types of diversity issues. We have read about race issues, ethnicity issues, class issues, and gender issues. The one issue that has affected me the most however, is the ethnicity diversity issue. This has been a prevalent issue in the world as of late, especially in the United States. I think that discrimination based on ethnicity will always happen no matter how well intentioned people may be. I don’t think that it is right, but I don’t see it going away any time soon, at least not in my lifetime. Discrimination, or “othering” as it is referred to in this classroom, has been around for centuries. This class has however, brought to light the many different types of “othering”
I was working for Pepsi Bottling Group at the time, and I was a Pepsi delivery driver for the town in which I live. This was the route that I was assigned, and I liked it because I was delivering to fellow community citizens. There was a Texaco gas station/convenience store that I delivered to that was on Main Street. It was a family run business, and the family was very nice. They were kind and very easy to deliver my products to. The family was from the Middle East, and after 9/11 happened, this business began having all kinds of trouble. The store kept getting vandalized at night after it was closed. The windows in the store were being broken. The building itself was being “tagged” with spray paint, and very nasty, demeaning words were being used in these “tagging” instances. I felt so sorry for this family that was just trying to live the “American Dream.” They were very nice people, but eventually the “taggers” won. This family sold the business and moved away from my town. This business has since gone completely out of business. To this day, my town doesn’t have a Texaco gas station in it. This made me very angry because this family had no ties to the 9/11 incident other than they were from the Middle East. I watched this family go from being a happy family living their dream, to being a terrified family that eventually feared for their lives, so they sold everything and left town. When the owner of this store told me that he was selling the business and his house because of the hate in the town, I felt awful. Here was a man that had worked so hard for this opportunity in life, and now it was going away because of a few idiots in my town. To this day, I think about that family and wonder how they are doing now? I often wonder if there was anything that I could have done to maybe change the outcome of this