This is a random blog, somewhat of the subject of school counseling.
As I was coming up Race was not an issue, not an issue with me anyway. But I do know with both my parents being African American and raised in a time where race did matter race and racism was clear to them. My parents didn't have friends of another races nor did they speak bad about another race, but it was this UN-spoken tension about race. I say all that to say when I was old enough to attend school my friends were of all different races. As long as you could play kick ball and had a good tether-ball arm, we were good to go. I never pushed the ideal of race unto my children, and over the years I have seen them participate in lots of events that had nothing to do with African culture. D'Marco who is my oldest went to Venezuela with one of his football team mates and fell in love or so he say. But he came back more grateful for his living arrangements because he seen first hand how another country has it 20x worst then Americans.
Tanzania my middle child has always had friends of other races. I can remember when she was in Kindergarten and I had a parent/teacher conference, I was told " Tanzania is a great student, but there is only one thing! I can not stop her and Xing from talking." I was thinking to myself who is Xing? When I met Xing she asked if Tanzania could come and celebrate Chinese New Year with her and her family. Before Tanzania attended the event she was determined to say " Gong Xi Fa Cai" and she did. She respected their culture and had a wonderful time. This May she is involved in a quinceañera and they used our house to practice, she is one of two African American involved in the complete celebration. Watching them practice the dance and watching how much she respects them and how much they respects her was a great thing for me to see.
As I said this is a random blog.... I was just thinking how wonderful it was for me to see that I helped them to always have a open mind and to see only one race and that's the human race.
I don't look at this as a random blog. I see how you can tie it in with education by just talking about how everyone can learn about the different cultures around them. Growing up in the bay area, you come across so many different cultures and that's what I love about it. I love that I can walk 5 minutes from my house and find different ethnic restaurants on the same street and the food is authentic to the culture it represents. Restaurant owners/employees don't question why the customers are in the restaurant, they're happy to see people of a different background eating their food.
ReplyDeleteBringing it back to education, the one thing I'd like to see in schools is for the children to learn about other cultures in school. We have many festivals that people from all backgrounds attend. I remember when I was in high school I was at a Filipino festival at the Civic Center and an African-American family attended just to have some lumpia. At the time I thought that was pretty cool. Now when I see non-Filipinos eating Filipino food, I’m just glad those people are venturing out of what they know into an unknown world. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have a variety of restaurants to choose from. I love learning about different cultures and trying their food.