In America, it is easy to say that any environment is by nature accepting and open because that is the foundation of the nation, but it is simply not the case. It is important as teachers to never take for granted that any child automatically feels included while not ostracizing them further by pointing out their differences. Further, it is necessary to be aware of one's own views and experiences in order to use them beneficially to include all the students in the classroom. By encouraging the expression of everyone's background--religiously, ethnically, and overall culturally-- and allowing the classroom to be a proper venue of education in those cultural backgrounds, the walls of discrimination are brought down and the students can come to realize that everyone has a different story and they are all worth sharing.
In my experiences, I have come to realize the reality of racism in the modern world that I did not understand as a child. I was raised in the mountains of North Carolina, an area defined very much by the previous slave movement in America. There are two sides very much represented--those who treat white people the same as everyone else and those who still don't even consider black people to be the same level of humanity as white people. As a kid, I was very much brought up in the former group. My mother immigrated from Cuba, so hispanics were not only as good as caucasians, but just as much our people as caucasians (despite our being Spanish decent, and thus light-skinned, as well as completely brought up in the American way). At the same rate, the idea of black people or asians being any different was never even considered. We weren't taught to not be racist; we simply didn't have the option. In my high school, we had a number of Korean exchange students whom we all clung to. We wanted to learn about their culture as much as they wanted to learn ours. We were at a private school where the families involved were well-educated and many had moved into the area. Racism was still not a question. It was not until I was living in Rome on my semester abroad that I witnessed the degrees of racism in the world today before my eyes. A group of my friends and I had decided to go to a small town near where we were living in the outskirts of Rome. Five of us were standing at a bus stop talking when an elderly Italian woman approached us. One of my friends and I were eager to speak with her to improve our Italian, while the other three watched our conversation. She began to ask how we had come to meet each other and we were confused as to why she would not assume that we knew each other before coming to this bus stop. To us, we were all clearly American and naturally traveling together. When we explained our situation, she pointed to me and another friend, baffled that we could be American because we have red-ish hair. The blonde haired guy was obviously American to her, as well as the boy with dark brown hair, but red hair cannot be a feature on Americans. We explained that Americans have all different colors of hair and she gradually accepted that we could be American, but then she pointed to our last friend and pointed to her cheek and said that she could not possibly be American because her skin is black. We tried to explain to her that she is just as American as we are, but the woman simply refused to believe it. We got on our bus amazed at the experience we had just had. To us, we all look equally American, but to this Italian woman that was not possible. We realized that our country is quite different than most others.
Another experience on our semester abroad was when the same black girl and I were traveling to Ireland on break. We got to the customs gate and I went first. Holding my U.S. passport and with a name as Irish as it gets, Kathleen Marie Moore, I was nearly as comfortable approaching their customs officer as an American customs officer. One look at my passport, my freckles and red-ish hair and I was passed right through without a pause. Then my friend approached the same officer with her U.S. passport. After 5 or 6 extremely detailed questions about the exact address she would be staying at and who she knew in Ireland, she pointed at me and said, "I don't know; she has our travel information." I walked over to the counter and asked what he needed to know and he simply asked if she was with me before stamping her passport to let her into Ireland. It's the kind of treatment that is illegal in America and I had never actually witnessed as a white girl. As we walked into Ireland, I was saying how ridiculous it was and Ashlea was almost unphased, just annoyed it had happened once again. We both carried American passports. We are both well-spoken and well-educated. Yet, one of us was considered trust-worthy while the other considered a threat.
The question at this point for teachers in America is how to include everyone in the room equally, embracing all their similarities as well as all their differences. It seems that the most important and natural thing to do, though it is not always exercised in the classroom, is to treat all our students the same. Changing standards for the black kids is like telling them that they can't do what everyone else can, so there are different expectations for them. It's the same way with girls verses boys or any other difference that teachers will try to counteract for. Affirmative Action is a good concept in a situation where one group is being excluded from an equal opportunity because they are different, but the standards should not be any different. Blind acceptance is much more multicultural because all ethnicities get a fair chance at a merit-based position based on their merit. A Korean girl who out-scores every black boy applicant should be granted the position rather than giving those spots to other people because the Korean demographic has already been filled. If justice is blind, that should be essential in our classrooms.
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