Personal Narrative: Life As An African-American Student

“Always driving around like idiots, tryna’ prove how macho they are… And they wonder why they get shot at.” This is what I have the pleasure of listening to when driving with my father. He spews venom towards every dark-skinned driver who runs a red light or changes lanes at the last minute, frequenting phrases like “gangsters” and “thugs.” In the passenger seat my mother chews her lip, never summoning the courage to silence him. Beside me in the back, my eight-year-old brother squirms. When I squeeze his hand he smiles, but his expression is unreadable. There was just one African-American student at the private school where I spent my childhood. I often wonder how they felt. Looking back a thousand questions spring to mind, but the truth is at the time it never occurred to me to care. The exclusivity of my early schooling coupled with my father’s influence shaped me into a child of comfort, ignorant of issues outside my sphere of understanding. I never thought of myself as indifferent, at least not

The college environment surrounded me with adult peers that revealed to me what I lacked; perspective. When discussing Junot Diaz’s accounts of life as a minority, a student from Trinidad detailed the treatment she receives because of her accent. A young veteran revealed the feelings of his fellow soldiers towards Afghans during a debate on the Vietnam War. I had always felt insightful when it came to school work, but now I felt like a child, that anything I had to offer in class was so narrow-minded I could only appear arrogant. There was only one course of action to take. I needed to improve my cultural literacy, and I took to the endeavor with unexpected enthusiasm. Before long I had carried my new perspective from the classroom into everyday life, but it came at a cost. The more I opened my eyes, the more I was able to see the role that prejudice played in my