The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

A memory I have of an incident when I witnessed someone else as a target of bias, prejudice, and/or oppression occurred when I was in the 6^th grade. I am from a small town and the town was divided. Whites lived on one side of town and people other than the dominating cultured lived on the opposite side. At the beginning of the school year, I remember making a new friend who had moved from Atlanta Georgia to NC. She was African American and she lived on the opposite side of town. On the weekends we would play together and our parents would play cards and talk. One day I overheard my friend’s parents talking about how the people within their neighborhood were not fond of them being within the community. A few days after overhearing their talk, my friend come into the cafeteria crying because the girls of that neighborhood were being mean to her. She said that they called her names and made fun of her because of the color of her skin. I can remember listening to my friend as she told me how some of the people within the neighborhood were talking about her family in a very derogatory way. She shared how her family was considering moving back to Georgia because of how they were treated. I felt sad because we had begun to become real close as friends. Often times I would think of the "whys", as it related the mistreatment of others as it related to skin color.

I believe that my hometown has changed a lot since I was in the middle school. The town even more diverse than it has ever been before. When I do back to visit my hometown, I am not there for a long period of time to know if the town has changed. However, through social media people from my hometown will post comments and memes that show prejudice and oppression.  It’s not as bad as it once was, but it is still there. I believe if some of the people who live within my hometown were able to go and see other towns or cities and see how they live, they would loss some of those old stereotypical ways.