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Developing Societal Self-Awareness

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As a child I grew up with the mentality that white people were superior to blacks because I was brought up in a poor environment. We lived in a small 2 bedroom house with no central air or heat with my great-grandmother and great aunt. I had to borrow over size clothes from family members to wear to school. All the black people in my neighborhood had similar homes to ours and also live in the same living condition as I did. It was one white girl that we went to school that lived across the street from our home. She invited me over on occasions and I remember always being astonished because I entered into a home where a traditional middle-class family live. That experience shape my belief that white people were inferior to black. I didn’t realize into now how much of an impact and influence that experience had on my self-development. My grandmother use to say that white people think that they are better than us, from where I was standing they were. I develop a negative self – concept, learning about African American history and school didn’t help it was just another confirmation that white people were better than blacks. I’m struggling with feeling ashamed of my race and culture. If African American adults accept society’s label of inferiority, they are likely to convey such thoughts and feelings to their children. (Solomon 1983). Letting my past shape my kids future is not acceptable and that’s why I chose this subject because the more I acknowledge it, the more I become self-aware that I can’t accept or believe any racial stereotypes. Rather it’s positive or negative because if I believe the positive stereotypes than it increase the probability that I will also believe the negative stereotypes. When we stereotype people based on race, we don’t take into account individual differences. The next topic is one that I started not to choose because I felt as it was more of the truth instead of a bias that older people d

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