Pigmentation.

In class last week we talked about 7 things that good parents do that mess up their kids. These included giving them creative names, making them play sports, and teaching them about stranger danger ( to name a couple). We were asked asked to share about our own experiences being raised. Many of the kids had stories about stranger danger. These stories started out harmless but with in 2 minutes it was less about stranger danger but more about raciest stories and sterotypes.  The common theme of many of the stories were they took place at a gas station and the student felt threaten or unsafe because it was on the "south side" of Chicago and there were blacks there. Each story had its own veration of this. One being " i was really scared going into the gas station and then the big black guy told me that i should get out of this neighborhood becuase i can get shot" REALLY STEVENSON??? come on! a. those guys were probley messing with you becuase they saw you were scared. b. you were making judgments on these people whos only difference is the pigmentation of their skin.  We are in high school yet our teacher has to tell us “ my brother is married to a black women” to get the racist and sterotypes to stop being spread in class?.? Why? Its frustrating that we cant look past the darker pigment of a person’s skin. Why do we have to sterotype the “south side” of Chicago of being “ a bad area” filled with crime and “black people”.  These students fail to see that there are nice neighborhoods there. And regardless of the people’s race that live thiere they are humans just like us. Not only has Stevenson’s students been stereotypical about people not around them but they have taken it even further. They have actually said these sterotypes and raciest comments to people’s faces. My friend is jamacian and she was walking down the halls to get to her locker when we had 8^th period free. These two guys came up to her and pointed and laughed. She had no clue who they were. They then called her a “filthy stinky  n word”. She was in shock and didn’t know if what she heard was what they really said. When she told me this I was mortified. I was not only furious that someone could say such derogatory comments to a complete stranger.  But sad that our world has not moved forward that racisism still happens. I guess the worst thing a parent could do to mess up their child is to not talk to them about how they shouldn’t judge people and how racist comments are one of the worst things that can come from their mouths.  Maybe parents do talk to their kids about this when they are younger and the kids forget or just go along with what their peers say. Maybe we need a course in higschool that reminds students that the only thing that seperates “black” people and “white” people is pigmentation of the skin. They are not filthy people but they are one of us. We have to learn to work together to make this world a better place. But if we let the sterotypes get in the way we will never accomplish anything.  Maybe im over reacting?  Maybe im not? But either way I think 8. On that parent list of what they do wrong is “not talking to their kids about sterotypes”.