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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Decent Essays

As a child, my first memories with race were when my mother was trying to integrate more Native American representation in my early media. However, the lack of Native American representation in children’s books and movies made her search to find fitting and accurate role models for me difficult. In the end, I only had Disney’s Pocahontas and a series of books about Kaya, an American Girl doll. Although she wanted me to learn more about my Native American heritage, these two examples were the only ones I had of Native Americans. At around the same age, I also learned about racism at school on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The teachers taught us about segregation, the rights that Martin Luther King, Jr. worked to secure for black Americans, …show more content…

Predominantly black and Hispanic communities surrounded my high school. Occasionally, we would have required community service events at the local public elementary schools. At these times, the race relations seemed strained as a result of the obvious difference in privilege between us and the students where we volunteered. While these actions were helpful, the required aspect obviously tinted the intentions and integrity behind them. It seemed like we were forced to engage with the community, using them to fulfill service hour requirements, leaving another mark on the race relations between my high school and the surrounding neighborhoods. On campus, race relations are better than they have been in the past, although they are still a bit strained. Right after I chose to enroll here, a graduate published a letter criticizing race relations on campus and the lack of response on the part of the administration. While there are projects like Project One that can create an impact, there is still some tension as the issues in the letter were raised fairly recently and these problems take time to change. On campus, students address race carefully, especially as the majority of the students are white. Therefore, there is still room for the improvement of race relations on campus. I am occasionally comfortable talking about race, but only in

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