Blog 5

This week talked a lot about racism and discrimination and James Baldwin’s article My Dungeon Shook is a powerful letter to his nephew that empowers his to look past racism and discrimination. Baldwin described how racism has destroyed Americans as he writes how it was, “destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.” This sentence really caught my interest because I agree with him completely but I would like to add onto his idea because I think that the racist Caucasians destroy all sorts of ethnic backgrounds but I think that everybody also needs to add in how they are destroying themselves, some know it and deny it while others are blinded by it. Not only is this essay powerful and beautifully written but also I learned a lot from his messages and found one of his themes to be incredible, telling his nephew to love those that hate you, those that have put you in an unpleasant lifestyle, and those that put you down. I was able to understand how important it is to inspire others and to help others out when dealing with difficult and important issues.

I thought that the most interesting condition in Peggy McIntosh’s essay is 46, “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in ‘flesh’ color and have them more or less match the color of my skin.” I find this an interesting comment because I have actually thought of that before too and always found that to be odd with all of the different inventions and choices Americans have today. Why would it take 2009+ years for people to invent different colored Band-Aids when they even have ones with Superman (a heroic male figure) and Barbie (the ideal female body figure)? Noting that both are Caucasians. Not only is this simple product shocking but are many other privileges which I can understand and agree with, but there are some of her ideas of white privileges that I disagree with such as 17, “I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color,” and 39, “I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.” I disagree with these two statements completely because there is not reason for anybody, of any race, sex, or other background, to act this way because it is disrespectful and that it reflects the individual and I would never drag a group of people with those actions. I understand that McIntosh brought up the fact that many of the white privileges are not detected by whites, which I can see and I am glad that I read her article because it raises my awareness and I can do my best to minimize racism and white privileges that are unearned.

My family history paper showed me a lot of my past that I never knew about. I decided to go back farther than the 1940’s because the information I could find was at my will. I had books and everything from the 1830’s when my families came over from Germany. I had many family members go to war and were in the action. One was thrown on the dead pile only to be saved by a fellow American soldier. My family is in big into agriculture and welding. My Gast side owned many stores in the St. Henry area. My family was very successful. I found out more than I ever would have guessed in this paper. My family was one of the first founders of my town and they did much more than just that.

Throughout middle school I was friends with the farmers and hard workers. My school was nearly 98% white, catholic, and had German heritage. I did have one friend that was black and he would come with his grandparents to St. Henry during the spring, summer, and fall. His grandparents were the Mexican tomato pickers. That showed me a different lifestyle that I never experienced before 6th grade. His family stayed in a house no bigger than my living room and three people stayed in that house. They had no air conditioning after the hot days to cool off or any luxury for that matter. I never judged the Mexicans as bad or worse people but many people did in my community. If my grandparents never owned that caning factory I have a feeling that I would be as racist as everyone else in the town. The reason for me saying this is because my town has a very strong work ethic which most places can not say. When I went to college I have not met a dozen people that work as hard as farmers and people in my community do. My town is very conservative politically because we are a farming community and I think that brings out the racism to our community as well.

I feel that my race puts me at social advantage in my community. Very few people talk to the Mexicans or the blacks in St. Henry. My county history has drove out black communities out of this area. At one time there was a town of 400 blacks in Carthagena and the town was burned in the 1970s because people wanted them out. Being the only boy in my family of six kids gives me the upper hand of inheriting the farm when I get older. That is a big advantage for me because that is what I want to do someday. Like what other people said I do not have to worry about walking at night like women do. I think that no one is equal because people discriminate people no matter what. First impressions can affect everything the way people view a race. People will always have a little bit of discrimination against race and sex for as long as I can imagine.