Awareness of Race

At the end of the year, I had an epiphany. As any other day, I walked to the Foggy Bottom train station with some friends. We went to L'Enfant Plaza station and waited for the train to come. There were three seats and four people so my friend, Philemon, and I started fighting for the last seat. From then on, the pushing and shoving led to my paper, which was in my hand, to fall on the train tracks. I stood there thinking, as Philemon took my seat, trying to remember if that paper was important or not. As I was pondering, I was shoved from the back. I looked up and told the man, that kept on walking, that he needs to say “excuse me!” He turned around and loudly said “you need to say excuse me”. I shouted back at him as they were some distance between us, “You shoved me from the back”. He then knew he was wrong but as I was young and black he would not admit it as he talked back saying that “I shoved him from the back”. As my two friends, to my disappointment, were sitting, my best friend Philemon got up and stood up for me and said “How did he bump to you when he was turned around and you came behind him”. The man, embarrassed but reluctant to give up, came closer and He looked with his sky blue eyes straight into my eyes. He held there for 30 long seconds, I did not blink once. Philemon standing by the side comically said “Are you just going to stare at him”, the man then walked off. Afterwards, two other fellows walked by and said excuse me and Philemon shouted, making sure the man heard him, “Thank you for saying excuse me”. The man walked back and stood right in front of us as he looked in the bag as he had something for us. As fear struck me, I stood back but still to my amazement Philemon was still standing there waiting for him. The man looked up and dramatically said “I’ll let you off this time”. I felt like I stood up to something big. WOW! I thought in my mind imaging what it took for Frederick Douglass to stand up to his master or Harriet Jacobs dealing with her master each and every day. From then on, I was aware of race.  

Racism is just another barrier not an excuse. Combating racism starts with me, with my mentality. I have to acknowledge that being black does not set me back and does not make me weaker or inferior. I also have to know that it does not make me special. On top of that, to be more open minded and not be racist to other ethnics. Then, I will expect the same from others. I have learned that pulling the race cards as most will say does not get you far. Now, I am not saying when I see discrimination, I am going to be scared to accuse someone of racism. I am saying to make it hard for anyone to be racist because of my skin color, my background, or anything that does not measure me as a person.

During class, many times students always underestimate my abilities to speak English, to understand hard concepts, to be clever, or to be at the same level as them. I know when I began speaking English or reading in class, students look up in surprise at my ability to read so well. They already had prejudge my ability because of my skin color or because I am from Ethiopia. Even afterwards, if I mess up on one word out of like three pages of text, they immediately correct me in a condescending way thinking they are superior because English is their first language. The funny thing is that they don’t even notice that they’re doing that. In addition, they don’t know that’s what MLK, Malcolm X, Cesar Chavez, and many other human rights activist fought for. I learned this year that whatever my background, my skin color, nor my economic standing decides who I am, what my future will be, and definitely not what I am capable of doing. When people try to discriminate on basis of skin color, economic standing, ethnic background, then they better be ready to be denounced and hit with the truth.