Trouble in Mind: To Be Black is Blue in America

1. After reading IBé’s story about being a black man in St. Cloud, the first emotion I felt was empathy. Although my experiences have never come close to that, in some distant way I can feel what he was feeling. My main takeaway though was how far St. Cloud has come. St. Cloud is a very diverse place (at least to me, growing up in a white community). I see more inclusion than I usually do exclusion, which sounds like a whole different city than what he is explaining.
2. I think the meaning behind this quotation is that, as a colored person, if you are always aware of the fact that you are a minority in a situation, you will always be upset about how unfair and hostile society is. You will always feel that the world is against you. However, if you turn a blind eye, you will lose your mind trying to decide what is and isn’t meant to be a microaggression towards you and ultimately lose grip on the reality of everything. Are you making up the discrimination in your head or are they actually singling you out?

Microaggressions in the Classroom

1. One microaggression I experienced specifically seemed to always happen in my high school math classes. Every time I was performing well on a certain unit it was always, “you’re so good at math, you’re lucky you were born being good at it”. My first thought was always, I can’t decide my reaction because it was a compliment immediately followed by a very hurtful stereotype.
2. A sense of belonging really clears my mind. In my high school, I was made aware every day that I was not like everyone else. However, in college, I really do not hear these microaggressions anymore. In fact, sometimes for days at a time I forget I am a different color. My culture is a part of me, but not something that needs to be thrown in my face everyday.

Do Conversations About Race Belong in the Classroom?

1. My high school was not extremely diverse. In fact, only about 6% of people in the whole city are not white. Being Filipino, I always was aware of the fact that I was different. In the environment I grew up in, it was sort of engrained in me that being white was a privilege in itself. For example, I have been told more than enough times “I really didn’t know if we were going to get along, but you are like the ‘whitest’ Asian girl I know”. So, it seemed to me from a young age that being white was some unattainable reward that I could act, but never truly be.
2. I think conversations about race should happen in schools, especially in areas where one race is dominated by another. However, I think the conversations need to be well planned and executed. For example, it should not just be an open floor debate about how race affects us in a 2^nd grade classroom. It should be engrained into the teachings. It should be about teaching young kids about the pitfalls and triumphs of all races. It shouldn’t be just “black people were enslaved, and the white people dominated all the land”. It should be “here are the ups and downs of both” so that colored children aren’t being taught that their past seemed hopeless.