I live in Avalon in Upper North Mankato, and for two years I've had different roommates. I live in a community where my neighbor across the street is a little old lady who has nothing better to do than sit in her rocking chair and watch everyone else. Within the last two weeks, I had a new roommate move in. Within two days of that roommate moving in, I received a notice on my door that I have an "unauthorized guest" living with me and that if I don't have them become "authorized" I am supposed to become evicted as of April 6th. To have a roommate authorized, they have to summit a criminal background check, and fill out an application. Like I've said, I've had many, many roommates in the last two years, but this roommate happens to be black. It bothers me how fast my neighbors around me called the park manager and told her about this new roommate, even though they've known about and have met my past roommates. That this roommate is the only one that has bothered them.
I guess my point is that I never really realized that racism still exists in everyday life . I live in this world where all my friends are very open-minded and we aren't racist. We strive to promote love and equality. It boggles my mind that this happened. Through this class, my eyes are being opened to the struggles of the hate and racisim that is still happening today in our very own neighborhoods.
"be the change you want to see in the world"
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Yeah things will surprise you. I was driving home from work one day and stopped at Kwik Trip for gas. I saw a car with 2 black guys pull in, and immediatly behind them was a cop car. The cops didn't do anything, they just followed. They weren't even trying to hide the fact that they were following. When the car parked the cops just parked close behind them not even in a parking space. they parked behind other parked cars. I wasn't very surprised by this, but the thing was that they weren't pulling them over. I've been followed by the cops before, but never like that, they were never that determined to get me. Before the car had left again, another cop had pulled in along side the first and they were talking, but when the car left they followed. I've seen cops do things like this before, but never this blatantly. I couldn't imagine a good reason why they wouldn't just stop the car if they had done something wrong already, so the only thing they could be doing is looking for a reason to stop them. I couldn't believe it. I don't know what the point of this is, but I guess I just agree that it happens a lot more than people think it does.
ReplyDeleteI agree that things wil continue to surprise us in our everyday lives. I don't think people have been sully woken up to racism in this country yet. My own sisters have some racist ideas. They aren't as racist as some people are, but when a friends bike was stolen from our front yard, they suggested we look for it at a house down the block. I asked them why this particular house and they said it was because there were black people living there. I told them that just because they were black people doesn't mean that they stole the bike. It could have been any nuber of people in our neihgborhood or just someone passing through.
ReplyDeleteTo go along with what all of you have said, I too am surprised in my everyday life to see how racism plays out. I grew up in a town of less than 1000, that was some what segregated for lack of a better term. One part of the town was where the blacks lived, another for the mexicans, and the other parts for the whites, but in our school race didn't really matter, for the most part that is, mind you graduating classes rarely go over 65 students. But one day i was at a friends house in the next town over and her dad came to me and called me an eskimo, (im south korean) and he called the german exchange student a nazi. This same friend once asked her parents what they would say if she dated a black man and they responded by saying, "why would you ever say such a thing, don't talk like that." Eventually I ended up dating this friend at one point and her parents eventually became more excepting after getting to know me, except she always seemed hesitant to introduce me to others from her family in fear of how they would react. I was shocked by the difference of how people react to other races in a town so close to mine. and to tie in with the discussion in class today, your experiences from your parents and where you grow up effect the way you think tremendously.
ReplyDeleteI feel like a lot of what we are talking about isnt direct racism with racial slurs, but more so racial discrimination. For example when i was at work today i saw a mexican american man ask one of my coworkers to help him get some paint mixed. He didnt speak any english but it was quite apparent what he wanted: he was waving one of those paint cards that show what color he wanted. my coworker didnt help him and later said to me "i had no clue what he was talking about and i couldnt understand him, plus i was busy." i stepped in and helped and realized what just happened.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a possibility that all of this could just be a honest mistake. My coworker may have just not understood what the man wanted and maybe whitneys neighbors are not racist. theres nothing worse than being accused of being a racist.
i think this is a good example of how people will stereotype each race and associate a certain threat level with each race. i'm guessing that if you would have had a roommate move in who was any color besides black you wouldn't have gotten that notice. i've seen the same sort of thing go on at my appartment. there was a black couple who came to look at an appartment one day and it seemed like most of the residents made a point to check them out. i'm pretty sure that the black couple could sense that they were being evaluated. since this happened i have seen many other people come check out appartments but nobody has gotten the same kind of reaction. i think its pretty pathetic that people will jump to a conclusion on somebody simply because of their skin color.
ReplyDeleteits silly to think that in a town as diverse as mankato has become that people think it is ok to act certain ways and make judgements based on skin color....as a student who before mankato lived in a town with like no diversity i have opened my eyes and learn to take it as an opportunity to learn from others, i put myself in their shoes, and maybe we should encourage those around us to do the same
ReplyDeleteGoing back to what domeier said, I have had five roommates in the last two years, and I have never received a notice. My neighbors had even met Angel, my last roommate and my sister who lived there before Angel. Anyway, my roommate got approved, which is awesome. :)
ReplyDeleteI would agree that there is still alot of racist poeople out there, i work at a political call center that calls people for contributions to help out canidates or organizations, and I can't belive some of the comments that you here on the phone about people talking about Obama, and if thats not enough they will even call out some of the peoople that we have dialing for us and say racist comments at them
ReplyDeleteA simialr situation happenen to me while living in camelot. I had lived there for two years and never had any problems. One day my roommate was gone and i had two of my friends over who happened to be black. When my roommate came home, he was informed by a neighbor that while he was gone someone had called the cops and told them that they thought we were selling drugs out of our house. The only thing i could thing of to address the situation was to keep inviting my black friends over and just give the neighbors who had a problem the finger until they realized how little we cared. Before this, i had never noted the police driving through the traior park, afterwards, i saw it on a weekly basis. It was definetley an eye opening experience.
ReplyDeleteFunny, Camelot and Avalon are owned and run by the same people:)...
ReplyDelete