Undergraduate / "you're like the whitest black guy I know" - Apply Texas Topic B [3]

Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.

"Dominique, you're like the whitest black guy I know," a friend once told me. According to my peers, I have a serious problem with not acting black enough. My good grades, multiple leadership roles and involvement in the school's orchestra are all reasons that my peers utilize to say that I do not act "Black" enough and claiming that my athleticism is the only thing "Black" about me. At first encounter, I did not realize that "acting white" was really a major issue until hearing about the issue in the words of Barack Obama, Bill Crosby, and a report done by a leading economist at Harvard University.

Throughout most of my high school career, I have been one of the few Black students in my above level classes while the rest of my Black friends stayed in on-level classes and generally took school less seriously. My desire to fit in with the rest of "Black" kids resulted in a drop in my previously stellar grades and a sudden disregard for the intellectual matters over which I used to obsess over. After a while, I realized that I do not have to make C's to be considered "Black" and my grades began to pick back up and my obsession with intellectual matters was rekindled. But still, I wondered about how many other Blacks nationwide were going through what I had went through. For a while, I was too busy with school to research on the effects of "acting white". Then one day when looking for someone who is influential to me (Barack Obama) I saw that as a Black intellectual he was accused of "acting white". I began to research the subject more deeply and realized that this is more than just a problem in my area, but a nationwide epidemic and even Obama addressed the issue in a Keynote address at the Democratic Convention in 2004.

This essay is incomplete and I would like to know where i should go with the essay.

Undergraduate / 'developing close relationships with White people' -UT Essay A [4]

Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.

Up until junior year, I had generally avoided developing close relationships with White people and normally stuck to hanging out with my fellow minorities. On the first day of school junior year in my Environmental Science class this all changed. Our teacher had us sit at tables that she randomly gave to us based on a drawing and I ended up with a tall, tan, and pretty White girl by the name of Abby. I just simply went over to the desk and greeted Abby with a friendly hello and sat down right next to her, never once did I suspect the impact she would have on the way I viewed White people and people in general.

I did not expect to become such good friends with Abby when I first met her. I had mostly avoided truly befriending White people because I believed that there are just too many differences between me and White people for us to be able to honestly relate. For example, Abby was a White conservative nor did she understand what it was like to have been poor; I was a Black liberal and lived with my grandparents in a third world country for a long time. Due to these differences, I did not expect us to be more than just acquaintances. Fortunately, Abby's innate curiosity about my Jamaican culture "broke the ice" for our friendship to get going. Abby had always seemed fascinated with cultures and she was someone who valued differences and diversity therefore her group of friends could fit into no particular generalization. Over time, Abby and I developed a strong friendship and before I even realized it, I was sharing my thoughts, desires, and even my emotions with Abby who was now one of my closest friends. I believe we could relate so deeply because regardless of our differences we all had our issues and trials that did not discriminate based on skin color.

My friendship with Abby forced me to realize that these boundaries I had put between myself and White people and anyone else were irrational and illogical. She has made me understand that all people can relate each other based on the "human" condition.