Blog #6

The United States was founded on the idea that everyone has equal opportunities, even though it took until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to finally requires that all people have the same rights. While the law requires that people are to be treated fairly under in all circumstances, this is not always the case. In the case of race people still discriminate, although not explicitly. This allows white people a huge advantage over people of other races and still complies with our laws.

Being a white male I have never experienced the negative side of the “white advantage”. I find it very hard to approach this subject because I was brought up to not to see differences in races but to celebrate them. All of my family friends were of different races and out of the five or so families that we are closest with only one family is white. I have heard of stories from some of the blatant discrimination that some of them have faced but

Unfortunately I don't think that this problem will ever go the way of blatant discrimination. It cant be legislated or ruled out of existence like school segregation. There are still marginalized portions of our population. The homosexual community, people of other races and differences in social classes all are part of how quiet discrimination takes place. One of my best friends in high school is African American and I have heard of many stories of when he has felt that he was not given all the opportunities as a person.

One of the times that I saw how this discrimination happened was when we were going to buy some supplies for a pep rally activity that we were putting on and he insisted that I stick with him in Party City. I said ok but I thought we were perfectly capable of splitting up so we could get everything bought faster. I asked him about it and he wanted me to stick with him because he didnt want to be seen possibly as stealing something. It had never occurred to me that people would even think about scrutinizing someone on the basis of race. I have learned to be more sensitive in situations where he might be affected by this prejudice.

I think that a lot of what happens is predicated on suburban views of inner city neighborhoods. The lack of funding coupled with with white flight makes it almost impossible to for minorities to succeed in our society. There are opportunities to fix these problems and we have many opportunities to make them right here at Marquette.

I think that the only way to eliminate these prejudices in our society is to celebrate our differences and make this very negative situation into a positive. We need to celebrate the different ethnic months and make sure that everyone is educated about differences and how to celebrate them. Part of the classroom education is teaching students about differences that we all have. None of us are the same, even my identical twin and I are very different people. Life would really be no fun if everyone was the same.