Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression

       

Saturday, February 11, 2012　
The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice and Oppression I have discussed my personal experience is when I was 10 when I first experienced racism. My uncle is black and his wife is white. So my cousin is of mixed raced. I was walking home with my cousin when we started talking about how the other children in her class had singled her out and made her feel bad about the color of her skin.She no longer wanted to be mixed, she wanted to be white. I said "You do know that you father is black don’t you?" She did not reply. I went home and cried because she made me feel bad about just the color of our skin, and how she let the other children get to her. My father wanted to go to the school to address this issue with the teacher and the children but I told him not to. My cousin later on told me that over one night she had realized that racism was wrong and that I was her best friend.

Another situation happened two weeks ago when one of my parents came to me to and said that she thinks her son other teacher is racist. This is a parent who is Caucasian and her boyfriend is Black and the two boys are bi-racial in which on of the boys are in my classroom. The teacher who she thinks is racist is an African American teacher and the parent thinks she is racist because the teacher will talk to the boyfriend but whenever she comes around she will not talk to her at all and that is her son. I agree with the parent! Why would she treat her any different from the boyfriend when she is the mother? She has every right to feel the way she does and I can feel her pain because she is such a sweet person. The parent came to me asking me what should she do. What should I do? After all this is my co-worker in which she is wrong and also this is my parent who is hurting because of the treatment she is getting from the teacher. I told the mother to follow her heart and to do what she think is best for her because wrong is wrong and right is right. I also suggested for her to make sure she follows the chain of command by going to the teacher first to find out what the problem is before going to her supervisor. I explained to the mother the importance of teaching our children about diversity and that we would in cooperate diversity into our curriculum throughout the year. In reference to how this diminished equity is that our schools are no longer segregated therefore, everyone should be treated equally and if your child is educated in public school you should leave all the microaggression at the door. When I’m put in situations like this it makes me very uncomfortable and I immediately become defensive inside in protection of my friend/my assistant but have to keep my professional composure.
posted by Tracey @ 9:26 PMHYPERLINK "http://tracey-hottes38.blogspot.com/2012/02/personal-side-of-bias-prejudice-and.html"