Blackboy and racism in connection to my life


Black boy was an interesting reading because of the issues discussed in the text. The quote on page 23: “Though I had long known that there were people called ‘white’ people, it had never meant anything to me emotionally... to me they were merely people like other people, yet somehow strangely different because I had never come in close touch with any of them” really encapsulates the idea that people are not born racist or with these ideals but rather society strongly shapes their beliefs.
I can empathize with the main character on such a personal level because I too experienced a similar shaping by my environment. Growing up, I don’t think that I really knew the difference between White people and myself, but it soon became evident that there was a distinction. Just like the little boy Richard is told that there is a difference, so was I, by my family members, other adults and peers, and even just in everyday interactions these particular beliefs were reinforced. I always grew up with the idea that White people were to be respected and almost revered since they had the majority of the power where I lived and often what was scarier was that I was told that they could “do things” to my family which is why we had to always be on our best behavior and almost be submissive to them.
Today, I know that these beliefs are not entirely correct in that it is not just White people whom could harm my family, and I also realize that not all White people live with a superiority complex – some did see me as an equal! Furthermore, anyone, not just White Americans, could lay judgement on my family, and just because they were White did not mean that they deserved any more or less respect, rather they just deserved respect in general and without conditions, for being humans.
Still, being surrounded by this constant idea that Whites were more powerful than Latinos was definitely something that was constantly thrown in my face: my father’s employers were mostly all extremely wealthy and White, my mother’s employers were also White and when my sister and I travelled with her to help clean houses, these beautiful and luxurious homes belonged to White people. Living in a very poor neighborhood surrounded by just people of color and then visiting places of opulence and visible cleanliness and upkeep, inhabited by a large majority of white people, all reinforced these beliefs and it was hard for me not to correlate wealth and power to equal “White”. I did not necessarily resent these people for having more than us, because my parents always taught us to be grateful to them for their kindness and gifts to us (often in the form of hand-me-downs but still more than what we could afford), but I did develop an inferiority complex that haunts me to this day in that I often don’t feel as worthy. Today, however, I am trying to overcome this, by accepting that there are White people who do not necessarily look down on me, and do see me as an equal.

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