Reflection About Equality

At the age of twelve I knew for sure that I was gay. I struggled with this internally because I knew that socially it was not normal. Many people made fun of gay people, and they made some people feel very bad about themselves. The first task of coming out was not to let people get to me in

Often times our society confuses equality for equal. Although the words may look same and share similar letters, the two have completely different definitions. As an African American citizen living in America I feel like we focus much on being equal opposed to having equality. Thus when having equality you are giving equal opportunity and more door become available, despite when being equal you are just like everyone else. However, unlike the novel “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I would rather have equality than to be one hundred percent equal to someone else. When making everyone equal you take away ones individuality, creativity, and strengths; eliminating competition and status feuds. Yet in order for them to make everyone equal they must instill fear and diagnoses everyone with false handicaps.

For the next two years I struggled with the concept that I might actually be gay. By junior I was certain that I was in fact all the things that I was called in middle school, but because of the negative memories I decided it was a secret that I was better of keeping to myself. That was until the spring semester of my senior year in high school when I decided that I was going to live my life the way I wanted to. I would no longer allow people to scare me into being anything other then what I wanted to be I would live my life openly and honestly. On the evening of February 16, 2014 I came out as Gay on literally every social media platform I owned. The following morning, to my surprise, my classmates for the most part greeted me with open arms. As I walked from class to class I received a staggering amount of compliments and support. I was quite frankly overwhelmed when I did get a negative comment and a dozen people rushed to my

M1): Analyze the importance to public services of good citizens respecting equality and supporting them by respecting the key concepts associated with diversity.

Although there are still many problems, nowadays every American citizen has equality and freedom. But in the 1900s, American people were divided by their skin color, and minorities were discriminated and segregated by the majority. Lynching was often practiced until the early 1900s. Hundreds of people would gather and have a picnic to watch a lynching. At the time African Americans were denied equality by the majority. There are two famous intellectuals who tried to gain equality and freedom for African American with two completely different approaches. They are W. E. B. Du Bois who was a leading African-American sociologist of the late 19th century, and Booker T who is one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. Booker T Washington and W.E.B du bois fought for African American Equality but had two different approaches and viewpoints.

As a nine-year-old girl I knew I was not “normal”. I didn’t like boys the way my friends did and I would always push my thoughts about girls away because it was “wrong”. At fourteen I started to come to terms with who I was. The thought of being a lesbian in high school petrified me. I thought I would never be able to openly be myself, I would lose friends and everyone would see me differently. The thought of finding love never crossed my mind because I never knew how I would tell a complete stranger that I was a lesbian. My family was extremely supportive after the initial

By October 11th, 2015, everyone knew of my sexuality. Everyone, that is, except my mum. My mum, who I have long been close to, who I have known longer than anyone in the world, was completely unaware of her daughter’s attraction to people of the same gender.

One day I realized that I would pay attention to and have crushes on the female characters in tv shows more than the males. I already knew what being gay was and how my family talked about people who didn't sexually identify as heterosexual, so I tried to hide it and I tried to get rid of my tendency to prefer females. I would be hurt and smile through whenever my parents would joke about gay people and call them names without knowing they were hurting someone they cared about.

The conflict over segregation has been an issue since the Civil War. After the Civil War, equality was slowed by many court cases and state laws. “Separate but Equal” was a term used to demonstrate that white and black people were to be separated, but have the same facilities available. Unfortunately, this was not always the case. The struggle to achieve equality was made more difficult by the legislation of racism in the Plessy v. Ferguson case.

My first experience with someone who was gay, it was easy to accept. I grew up in a very open home that told me it was okay to be who you are. Once I asked my friend how he knew he was gay, he told me he tried to date girls but he was not comfortable in a relationship with a girl. However later in high school he began to grow feelings for a mutual male friend. That moment he knew who he was then sophomore year he came out as openly gay. From what I saw from this is to prove a point he did not choose to be gay but found his sexual identity. He always says I was born this

Growing up everyone is told that they are unique. “Be yourself,” “use your God-given talent,” and other expressions such as these impress the aforementioned narrative into our minds. Thus, when I was around thirteen years old, I thought my sexuality was just a part of me that only I had. I wanted to share this feature about myself; I wanted to take pride in it and show it off. Coming out to a close few friends showed positive and emotional responses. Riding on this high, I was ready to embrace myself in high school. Yet, my naivety took the best of me as I was going to an all male, religious high school. My sexuality has provided me with experiences that have and will continue to shape my life. These struggles, whether they are internal or external, have provided me with invaluable skills.

What is equality? Is it just a political nomenclature or an ideological concept? Or is about working towards creating a fairer society in which each individual can enjoy his/her rights and freedom without any judgement considering that “[w]e will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.” Will Rogers (1924, p210).

Many use their middle and high school years as a path of self-discovery, whether they know it or not. Like most people, I spent most of my life feeling I was like everyone else that was around me: cisgender and heterosexual. In middle school, I began to learn that there was even such a thing as having a different sexuality, though at that age it was all being ridiculed in front of me, and I shrugged the whole ordeal off as being something that had never and would

one of the most important and complicated dilemmas of human philosophy: how do we choose

Today we live in a world that continually stresses to us that, "All men are created equal." While this sounds great at face value, further inspection tells us that this is far from realistic and sadly may never be. One can examine any aspect of society whether it be race, religion, language, level of education, sexual orientation or economic status and notice that there are numerous characteristics and factors of identity that enable others to treat others differently. This truth may not be pleasant or make one feel all warm and fuzzy inside, however it is our society’s reality, however dismal it may be. Even if the statement above as to the equality of all men were true, how about women? Clearly women have made tremendous strides towards