ism

Today in my social work class we discussed the different "isms." Racism, Agism, Heterosexism, Handicapism, Sexism, etc. We split up into groups and were assigned to talk about one of them. My group was assigned racism, which was the one that I thought I knew most about. The way we were split into groups somehow turned out that I actually had a few people from different ethnic backgrounds. I then heard first hand of some of the ridiculous stupid and sometimes unbelievable things that people do. I know it is still going on today. I see it sometimes here and there. I wonder if it always will be an issue? 

• Are we always going to lock our cars when a black or hispanic person walks by?

• Will we always think that because they are white that they are doing well for themselves and think they are better than everyone else?

• Will this country make English a national language?

• Are cops going to continue to be able to ask people to hand over their identification just because they are Hispanic?

I think it's odd that we are discouraging other languages in this country and doing everything we can to make english a National language but then the education systems are busting their butts and spending all of this money trying to make "dual immersion" schools. That is where the children get taught stuff in english half the day and spanish in the other half so that kids are brought up bi-lingual. I am not saying about whether I'm in favor of the National language thing but I just feel like some of our actions are not fully backing up that request.


I lost some respect for my fellow citizens and myself today.
There are a few things I will look at differently now. 
We can all be better.