Race Relations

Kitsune · 02-08-2007, 02:07 PM

"Nothing but a bunch of racist rednecks down there. You'll hate it."

When I was nine years old, this is the line my family heard many times as we packed up our belongings and prepared to move from a tiny town in eastern Ohio to Atlanta. It is amusing to look back on this, considering that my pale skinned family was singled out in that town for simply having a non-English last name. It was so bad, in fact, that my father told me I should change my name once I turned 18 in order to improve my chances of getting a job, to generally make my life easier, and so that I wouldn't have to endure the treatment he did. In that little town, there weren't enough blacks/Asians/non-whites for people to be prejudiced against, so they discriminated against the next best thing: people who didn't have last names similar to "White", "Brown", or "Wilson".

Atlanta was worlds different. The area I lived in was extremely racially diverse and amazing in its acceptance of it. I was nearly a minority at my high school, which had a large population of Korean, Chinese, and Indian students. I simply couldn't treat it seriously the one time I saw intolerance in my neighborhood: I was refused service at a Waffle House for being white.

How does your area fair?

02-08-2007, 02:07 PM	#1
Kitsune still eats dirt Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 3,031	Race Relations "Nothing but a bunch of racist rednecks down there. You'll hate it." When I was nine years old, this is the line my family heard many times as we packed up our belongings and prepared to move from a tiny town in eastern Ohio to Atlanta. It is amusing to look back on this, considering that my pale skinned family was singled out in that town for simply having a non-English last name. It was so bad, in fact, that my father told me I should change my name once I turned 18 in order to improve my chances of getting a job, to generally make my life easier, and so that I wouldn't have to endure the treatment he did. In that little town, there weren't enough blacks/Asians/non-whites for people to be prejudiced against, so they discriminated against the next best thing: people who didn't have last names similar to "White", "Brown", or "Wilson". Atlanta was worlds different. The area I lived in was extremely racially diverse and amazing in its acceptance of it. I was nearly a minority at my high school, which had a large population of Korean, Chinese, and Indian students. I simply couldn't treat it seriously the one time I saw intolerance in my neighborhood: I was refused service at a Waffle House for being white. How does your area fair?

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