cwistoefur
Dec 20, 2012
Undergraduate / To show the world that "We Exist"is my vision ; Stanford Supp/ Intellectual Vitality [8]
Thoughts? :)
As a black young man, I've faced numerous stereotypes just based on my outward appearance, experiences such as store clerks being extremely cautious of me whenever I enter a store to pedestrians being incredibly wary of walking into me when I'm walking towards them on the sidewalk. I was completely oblivious to it growing up but a few years ago something happened to me that made it clear that there is indeed a great deal of discrimination still going on against me. I clearly remember the morning that I had just been dropped off by my mom to walk to school from a gas station. As I was walking to school I spotted a few of my friends in the distance and caught up with them so that we could embark on our journey to school together. We could overhear the deafening bell that warns students that school will commence in 10 minutes sound, so we began to quicken our pace. We had just turned the corner into the gate when the Principal stopped us to tell us that we were late and that she was going to give us detentions for a week. I was completely astonished by the fact that when she stopped there were students who continually walked by us. When we got to the office, the principal promptly called our parents and told them that we had gotten in trouble because it "looked" like we were up to something. The main issue was obviously that we were a group of black boys; I could tell because when she looked up our academic record she seemed very surprised that we all had good grades. The whole predicament is something that I will remember my whole life because it was an example of misconceptions that I face just being a black male but also work very hard to change with my efforts in school. Going against these common misconceptions matters the most to me because while it may be clichĂŠ there is always so much more to a person that what is on the outside. And that shouldn't be the way that a person should view others.
Thoughts? :)
As a black young man, I've faced numerous stereotypes just based on my outward appearance, experiences such as store clerks being extremely cautious of me whenever I enter a store to pedestrians being incredibly wary of walking into me when I'm walking towards them on the sidewalk. I was completely oblivious to it growing up but a few years ago something happened to me that made it clear that there is indeed a great deal of discrimination still going on against me. I clearly remember the morning that I had just been dropped off by my mom to walk to school from a gas station. As I was walking to school I spotted a few of my friends in the distance and caught up with them so that we could embark on our journey to school together. We could overhear the deafening bell that warns students that school will commence in 10 minutes sound, so we began to quicken our pace. We had just turned the corner into the gate when the Principal stopped us to tell us that we were late and that she was going to give us detentions for a week. I was completely astonished by the fact that when she stopped there were students who continually walked by us. When we got to the office, the principal promptly called our parents and told them that we had gotten in trouble because it "looked" like we were up to something. The main issue was obviously that we were a group of black boys; I could tell because when she looked up our academic record she seemed very surprised that we all had good grades. The whole predicament is something that I will remember my whole life because it was an example of misconceptions that I face just being a black male but also work very hard to change with my efforts in school. Going against these common misconceptions matters the most to me because while it may be clichĂŠ there is always so much more to a person that what is on the outside. And that shouldn't be the way that a person should view others.
