Do people’s actions and words deserve to get a rise out of individuals different from them? Is it our duty to fight ignorance and discrimination for the improvement of the younger generation’s future? For being in such a liberal part of the Midwest, she has faced more discrimination than anywhere else. Growing up in three different states, Louisiana, Maryland, and Missouri, her childhood has been shaped to fit the social norm around her. Starting with Louisiana, the southern United States. It wasn’t always easy being an African-American woman in a racist part of town. Growing up with other kids and having them be disgusted by her appearance. She was judged for everything, even the very words she spoke. Apparently being “very articulate with [her] words” and using proper English was not a fad in southern Louisiana (04:21). She was taught well by her mother but was unfortunately made fun of “trying to be white” for not using social slang (04:59). She was not trying to be something she wasn’t; she was living the only way she knew how. They accused her of thinking she was better than the other kids. When she saw other kids experiencing similar racial profiling, she asked for help. She asked her school administrators and they claimed they couldn’t do anything about it. She disagreed, “there is something [they] can do about it. [They] just don’t want to do anything about it” (09:30). She was always “an outcast” and she never even got along with other African-Americans (05:05). She did get “along with white people” but they would often “cross the line” in some of the things they would say (05:05). She has always been isolated because she was different from everybody else. Much like in They Were Just People by Bill Tammeus and Jacques Cukierkorn, a collection of true stories that tell about personal times during the Holocaust. One story in particular about Zygie and Sol Allweiss, a portion of the story says that Zygie was taken in by a nice family because the Germans did not view the “Jews as fellow human beings” much like someone would isolate a person just for their color or appearance (They Were Just People).
When she was in early high school, she began to change; she realized that she was sexually attracted to girls. For her, this was the third tier for social discrimination, and her guardians were not supportive at all. For years she’s been hearing horrible things from the people that she thought were her role models. “We don’t want you to be gay” her mother exclaims, “We want you to have a nice little marriage, with a man” (12:13). Hearing that at an already rebellious age made her even more afraid to express herself. She would try and “force [herself] to be with guys…[she] would always keep going back to girls” (12:13). Trying to be something she was not, she was starting to see that if she tried to live up to her mother’s expectations, she would be miserable her entire life. She realized if her family really loved her, they would not try to change who she already was.
Kansas City is overall, a politically divided city. You have liberals and conservatives; you have safe spaces and places of discrimination. A place that has been safe in her judgment is her place of work. Starbucks has given her a space to be herself and work freely without worry of judgment. She hasn’t “dealt with any racism from [her] co-workers” or “any homophobia” because everyone who works there comes from different backgrounds (14:23). It is important to surround ourselves with positive energy and supportive people, and she found that at her place of work.
So, I asked her what it was like being African-American, homosexual, and a woman. “Sometimes being a woman is like, the third tier” she exclaims (16:08). She has experienced discrimination in all three categories, and the one person she should trust has let her down the most. When she was a young teenager, she was beginning to question her sexuality. “[Her] mother found out that [she] liked girls, and she treated [her] like absolute garbage” (16:40). Her mother took away all of her privileges so she couldn’t contact girls. Her mother used her own religion against her, saying “that’s not what God wants from you” and drove her away from Christianity (16:40). She considered her religion to be her safe space and when her mother used it against her to tell her what she was doing was wrong, she made the decision not to follow any religion. Her mother was ashamed and told her not to express herself on social media out of fear of being embarrassed, but she wasn’t about to change who she was to gratify people she barely even knew. Her relationship with her mother was deteriorating slowly over a period of time, and she has said some crazy things. Her mother asked why she couldn’t be like other parents and “just have to deal with [her] being boy crazy” and not be ashamed of her daughter (19:47). It is hard on her now because she unfortunately still lives with her mother, and their relationship is toxic. It is hard when someone longs for a good relationship with a parent but keeps having to push them away because they aren’t supportive or loving in the ways one would expect. Luckily, she has a strong relationship with her father; she is not completely unsupported in her journey.
One can either dwell on the past or learn from it. This brave young woman has chosen to learn from her past and it has made her so much stronger. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in the black community, it doesn’t matter if you hang around with straight people, gay people, like there is always going to be somebody, somebody that has an issue with you” (24:00). She strives to make a change by encouraging people to be more accepting and open-minded. She gives advice to people in similar situations, “do anything to relieve your stress” she says (26:15). She encourages people not to entertain racism, bigotry, or homophobia. She always picks her battles wisely and intervenes when she feels it is the right thing to do. She doesn’t feel the need to react to everything thrown her way. Patience and tolerance are key for her to live stress-free. “Not every reaction needs a reaction” and I feel everyone should introduce this to their lives and learn from situations (07:13). We as a society should not be focusing on isolating people because they are of a different race, sexuality, or gender. If we express our voice and fight the ignorance and the prejudice in this country, we may be a virtuous nation once again.
Mariah E. Stone, an undergraduate student at UMKC School of Biological Sciences, wrote this story that dove deeply into the social discrimination that her interviewee suffered for being homosexual and an African-American woman. She started her essay by questioning the path that society should take on the way to become more tolerant, expressing her standing on the subject. At the end of her essay, she reaffirmed her belief that society should be more acceptable of differences, with the hope that doing so would make the United States a “virtuous nation once again.” I liked it because it analyzed her interviewee’s struggle with discrimination for different reasons, it highlighted the importance of addressing this problem and emphasized the complexity of it. Mariah interviewee’s experiences showed that she had to overcome discrimination because she did not fit the norms of her social environment. Expected to behave, talk and act according to what the people around her thought was proper, she felt marginalized from both African-Americans and White Americans. If she spoke properly, she was “trying to be white” in the minds of other African-Americans or “They accused her of thinking she was better than the other kids” from the view of White-Americans. In addition to being ostracized by both groups, she also experienced rejection for being homosexual, especially from her mother, who wanted her to “have a nice little marriage, with a man” and told her that being gay was “not what God wants from you”. Her mother’s attitude affected her life negatively and made her try to change her identity to conform to the social norms. This can be related to the Nazi occupation of Europe. One of the groups that the Nazis persecuted were the homosexuals because they considered them degenerate and they did not fit with the “moral values” that good Christian Germans (and Europeans) were to follow. This behavior remains in our society today and Mariah’s detailed account of her interviewee’s experiences with discrimination showed how complex the problem is and that people who suffer from racism and other types of discrimination must overcome obstacles that originate not only from people that are different from them but also from their own communities.