Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Article in Community News at Wheelock (1998)

12 years ago, I was getting my Master’s in Special Education at Wheelock College. In most of my classes, I had one or zero other males there with me. For the first time in my life, I was part of a minority. Here is what I wrote about it in the December 7, 1998 issue of the Community News:


I thought it would be a good article to share for Black History Month even though I will never know what it is like to be black or any other group that has been treated so unfairly.

What I do know is what my parents taught me. Even though they never explicitly said “Don’t treat others differently because of their race or how they look”, they taught me by example. I saw them treating all people with respect and never heard them making racist statements or even jokes.

Along with having great role models in my parents, racism and prejudice never made sense to me. Treat others as you would like to be treated is what makes sense to me.

I know racism still exists worldwide, and the only way to stop it is for everyone to teach the next generation to judge people based on their actions and not on their gender, race, religion, nationality, or sexual preference. Until everyone realizes that we’re all in this together, injustice will live on…

For more information on Black History Month, you can go to history.com and biography.com. MLK’s entire “I Have a Dream” speech is below:

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