Race Article Reaction

At first I was reluctant to approach the article about race because I always hear so much about dealing with race. I think it’s weird: although I hear a lot about dealing with race issues properly, I hardly ever witness racism. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be the first to acknowledge that there is a problem with racism in our society. But I think it’s because I grew up in an affluent white community that I never really witnessed it firsthand. I can see what Tatum meant about how we are never really forced to confront the issue if there is no catalyst to make us. Back home, when I hang out with my friends, it’s not like we choose to not hang out with people of color; it’s just that there are hardly any. Therefore, I feel as if I’m at the beginning stage of race identification because I’ve never been confronted with the problem. Maybe now that I am in college hopefully it will be easier to learn about these issues. I kind of think it’s ironic that I came from the community I did to Tufts, a university which makes a point of celebrating diversity.

I also feel like taking a class that deals with race issues might be a good idea. There are certain things that I feel guilty about, like a lot of people listed in the article, that I would like to talk about. I don’t know if I feel comfortable discussing them here, because we don’t have the set of ground rules in place that the class does. But I feel like there’s so much before this that has gone unnoticed by me because it’s just how I grew up. For example, the “zaps” that she talks about, or jokes meant to ignore the issues or lessen the intensity of the situation, I feel like I’ve seen/heard a lot of those and laughed along with everybody else. I feel like I’ve been taught that it’s okay to laugh about it and somehow this helps the situation, but really it just ignores the problem. Clearly there are a lot of issues that I need to deal with one way or another