In a recent class I learned one of my classmates is bi-racial, having a white father and black mother. I have had classes with this young lady, but I have always operated under the assumption she was fair skin African-American. This semester we both share the same torturous Tuesday-Thursday schedule and we have grown closer as a means of survival. I'm not sure what difference it would have made if I knew she were bi-racial, but now this new knowledge has opened up a lot of new
material for me to joke about with her.
During class she told us of an incident that happened to her in kindergarten. In honor of Fathers
During class she told us of an incident that happened to her in kindergarten. In honor of Fathers
Day her teacher assigned the class to create a card representative of their fathers. According to her there were two piles of construction paper, "a chocolate pile"and a "vanilla pile," students were instructed to "take a sheet that looks like your father."
Of course she went to the front of the class and took a vanilla sheet and all things representative of her white father and this little black girl was prepared to make a blond-hair, blue-eye, vanilla-face representation of her father.
Instead of leaving her alone, the teacher tried to force the little girl to take the supplies that she assumed an African American girl should have. This supposed professional went so far as to call this child a liar, belittling her until she eventually cried.
I mention this story because in our multi-ethnic class I have learned it is not always the other man that hates on you, sometimes it's the brother man. Journalist are people and carry the same baggage as anyone else, life experience can not only color our perception of other tribes but also the way we view our own.
Of course she went to the front of the class and took a vanilla sheet and all things representative of her white father and this little black girl was prepared to make a blond-hair, blue-eye, vanilla-face representation of her father.
Instead of leaving her alone, the teacher tried to force the little girl to take the supplies that she assumed an African American girl should have. This supposed professional went so far as to call this child a liar, belittling her until she eventually cried.I mention this story because in our multi-ethnic class I have learned it is not always the other man that hates on you, sometimes it's the brother man. Journalist are people and carry the same baggage as anyone else, life experience can not only color our perception of other tribes but also the way we view our own.
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