Prejudice And Racism While Living In The Bahamas
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.” It is frequently presumed that racism has been around since the birth of humans. Some may even say that racism is a part of human nature. Racism is defined as the belief that members of each race hold characteristics or abilities specific to that race that distinguishes it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
I am from The Bahamas and I have a strong African identity as a result of my nationality. Majority of the people living in The Bahamas are of a darker complexion hence, race/ racism was not a prominent issue that I had to deal with on an everyday basis. However, there are …show more content…
My parents decided to enroll me in the only prominently white school due to its close proximity to my home. I was one of the few persons in my class of the black race and although I did not know much about racism there was a discussion that took place over the color of the black students’ skin. The black students insisted that they were black and the white students argued that their peer’s skin color was not black but brown. The white students kept showing the ‘blacks’ examples of things around the room that were literally black. It was obvious that the black students had already developed an idea and understanding of race and their own racial identity as a result of being in a class with mostly whites. My white classmates were talking about the actual color of skin. Not only does this situation demonstrate different levels of racial consciousness, it also provides an example of a common scenario in which a person of color struggles to assert his own identity and a white person feels he has the authority to define and categorize people of color (Wise 2005). This happened to be my first and only experience with racism until I came to college in 2014 because I enrolled in another school the following year.
In my second semester I was assigned a roommate who was white that did not care too much for blacks. She took on the role of being ‘superior’. On one occasion she wrote …show more content…
Women are discriminated primarily in the workplace. They are bypassed for promotions and very often are paid less than their male counterparts doing the very same job duties. Racism and gender inequality, in my opinion are twin heads of
I am from The Bahamas and I have a strong African identity as a result of my nationality. Majority of the people living in The Bahamas are of a darker complexion hence, race/ racism was not a prominent issue that I had to deal with on an everyday basis. However, there are …show more content…
My parents decided to enroll me in the only prominently white school due to its close proximity to my home. I was one of the few persons in my class of the black race and although I did not know much about racism there was a discussion that took place over the color of the black students’ skin. The black students insisted that they were black and the white students argued that their peer’s skin color was not black but brown. The white students kept showing the ‘blacks’ examples of things around the room that were literally black. It was obvious that the black students had already developed an idea and understanding of race and their own racial identity as a result of being in a class with mostly whites. My white classmates were talking about the actual color of skin. Not only does this situation demonstrate different levels of racial consciousness, it also provides an example of a common scenario in which a person of color struggles to assert his own identity and a white person feels he has the authority to define and categorize people of color (Wise 2005). This happened to be my first and only experience with racism until I came to college in 2014 because I enrolled in another school the following year.
In my second semester I was assigned a roommate who was white that did not care too much for blacks. She took on the role of being ‘superior’. On one occasion she wrote …show more content…
Women are discriminated primarily in the workplace. They are bypassed for promotions and very often are paid less than their male counterparts doing the very same job duties. Racism and gender inequality, in my opinion are twin heads of