Some of my students were bemoaning the fact the the term “Brown Pride” had been turned into a the name of a gang.
“Still”, I said, “If I say ‘White Pride’, people are really going to get the wrong idea.”
One kid nodded and said, “Yeah, your ancestors really screwed that one up for you.”
Race come up a lot in our small class, where students from all backgrounds have conversations with other kids whom they ordinarily wouldn’t talk to. One student was going on about how he didn’t understand white people, their food, etc. I asked, “So, do you want to come home with me so that you can see how white people live? You can watch my son make macaroni and cheese.”
“Yeah”, the kid said. “I’d really like to do that. I have no idea how white people live.”
Have we really become so separate? Perhaps I will consider opening my home to these kids. I don’t think of myself as living in an alien culture, but perhaps that’s how it’s perceived by some. Just some thoughts.
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Oh my God, that kind off conversation seems so weird to me. Maybe because in Brazil racism is not so much a matter of colour. It´s more a matter of how much money do you have. But still, I´m black, and I don’t have a lot of money but I have a lot of white friends. Actually I think I have more white friends than black ones. But of course, in Brazil everyone is so mixed up that is hard to know someone that doesn’t have a black person somewhere in his/hers family.
This comment may sound a little strange but I was just a little bit shocked about how separate white and black people are in the US. I didn’t know that it was so bad.