Reflective Essay: Diversity In The Workplace

“Little lady, it's best you get out of here, it's not safe for you here.”, it's a phrase I heard more often than not while living in Baltimore, between the ages of nine and eleven. When I first heard this phrase I was convinced the officer and the city workers were just worried for my friends, who happened to be African-American and Latino, and I as a whole and just chose me out of the group to speak to. I am a white-passing Native American female, who lived in a city which has a predominantly, 63.7 percent, Black population.. I never looked at myself as privileged because of how I grew up, with a single mom, on the WIC program, and with no money to spare. But I soon realized, at quite a young age, just how wrong I was. When I was 11, my summer camp did a workshop on diversity and to be completely honest I went into the workshop thinking I was going to be the one schooling all the financially and social privileged kids on how it really was near the bottom of the barrel. The first day, I met my fellow campers, and I've spent my whole life in diversity. I've always lived in diverse neighbourhoods and gone to diverse schools. I had the phrase “I don't see colour” coined. Needless to say, I was
Andrew Hacker wrote “Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal”, and in it he says, “ From Slavery through the present, the nation has never opened its doors sufficiently enough to give black Americans a chance to become full citizens”. He believes, as I do, as all should, that white privilege is real, and my experience in life has proven it so, that I benefit in way I don't even realize. I can use slang and forgo proper English and not have my intelligence questioned. I can walk down the street and not be looked at as a threat due to my skin colour. I can truly be innocent until proven