preview

Personal Narrative

Decent Essays

I was not an intentionally bigoted twelve-year-old. I was raised in an affluent suburban community where the vast majority of people are white. The 100% white private nursery school which I attended was chosen by my parents largely due to its proximity to our home. My public elementary school was about 70% white as it was populated with students who resided nearby. Finally, the private middle school which I attended, located almost an hour from my home, provided me with exposure to the most diverse student body of my youth as it was comprised of about 65% Caucasian children. What each of these formative academic experiences shared in common was both that their student bodies were disproportionately Caucasian, as well as that their senior administrators …show more content…

Only occasional street lights functioned every few blocks, making it increasingly difficult to ascertain where exactly we were headed. My parents deliberately navigating through the one-way alleys, seemed to have a destination and purpose in mind. In the middle-of-nowhere-Queens, our car pulled into the dimly-lit parking lot of a brightly-lit Jamaican restaurant. I very hesitantly emerged from our car feeling as if I had traveled to an alien world. However, a glowing, neon welcome sign, paired with the smell of freshly cooked curry and the rhythmic sound of reggae blasting at us from its open door, lured me. As we crossed the threshold, however, the comfort that I wanted to feel was instantly replaced with distress; my family was the only white family in the restaurant. My feelings of panic intensified as my unflappable parents stepped away from me and up to the counter becoming engrossed in, and thoroughly enjoying the promise of the Caribbean menu board on the far wall. As if their shadow, I hurried to rejoin my parents to reclaim the safety I would feel in their close proximity. Having placed our order and rotating to scan the room for an unoccupied Formica dining table, I was astonished to find the other patrons happily engaged in their own social occasions and taking neither notice nor mind of our apparent invasion into their world. In fact, as we demolished our jerk chicken and callaloo, we were not glared at or shunned as I considered might have been the case if the tables were turned and we were at an otherwise 100% white dining establishment. If the tables were turned, with a single non-white family seated amidst a sea of white faces, the reaction towards that white family, by at least a few, would have been disgust rather than nonchalance. For the first time I was able to consider the issue of race

Get Access