My first encounter of prejudices was at the age of 23. I was out of high school and I had saved some money to go on road trip around the United States. My friend Joe and I stop in a little town called Savanna, Georgia to buy gas. I noticed that there were a lot of black people sitting around their shops and stores. They were just hanging around staring at us. Maybe we were the only white people on that side of town, I really did know. The only thing that came to mind was the L.A. riots that broke out in the early 1990’s. I remember the truck driver that was severely beaten just because he was white. This image scared me so much that I would not even get out of the truck to eat. This was the first time I had ever encountered black people. I have to blame this behavior on the fact that I was raised in Montana all my life, and I only heard negative stereo types of this race of people. Joe had more experience in life because he lived in L.A. He was the first person to reassure me that not all black people hate whites. I also learned something about the Southern State that day. Even though there is no more segregation, there are still unwritten rules that black and white people follow.
I can’t think of any particular group or person that helped me overcome my racial fear of African Americans. Moving out of the cradle of Montana into a bigger city was the breaking point for this fear. When I started nursing at Good Samaritan Hospital, I realized that African Americans and Hispanics are just as good of people as I am. Phoenix is a very culturally diverse city. Some people say we have no culture, but I have to disagree with that statement. Also, in the time I have been going to school; I have been learning about cultural diversity in my anthropology classes. This has made me a better person than my parents. When I go back to Montana every summer; it is hard for me to not correct my parent’s racial remarks. These racial remarks are like a disease passed on verbally through generations. The only way to stop prejudices is to confront the individual and correct his or her biases. There is so much to learn when people open their minds to other cultures and traditions. There is no one individual or culture that should have the right or the privilege to discriminate against another. We live in a global society in which the traditional boundaries that separate cultures are now being broken. If tolerance was taught as a requirement for all the schools around the world; the world would be a much happier place.
The teachers of the Glendale Community College Anthropology Department have reinforced my ideas of racial an ethnic tolerance. They have opened my eyes to how little people differ. Science has taught me that there is one specie of hominoid and it is the human race. Our human race is 100,000 years old; that is a drop in the bucket compared to time it-self. Humans are incredibly adaptable to the harsh elements on earth. The first people that traveled out of Africa learn to adapt to what ever elements they settled in. These were the first signs of culture and heritage. There are only a hand full of genes in our DNA that separate our phenotypes, such as; skin color, hair color and eye color. The only real and definitive difference between me and someone else are the cultures that we grew up in. I have learned toleration and acceptance through the study of science, religion and cultural anthropology. I am no longer that young man that would not get out of the truck because I was afraid of black people but a person that embraces cultural diversity.
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