Friday, January 18, 2013

Being Brown and Proud

Jaira Ontiveros
Mrs. Guerard
Period 3 - XP
January 17, 2013
            White people judge me because I am brown, I am Mexican, and I dress like a “gangster” according to them. Every day I walk the streets, I do not like to ride the bus just because people look at you like a criminal or something; even they move to other sits in the front to be as far away as they can from you. When white people see a Mexican girl wearing black pants, black converse and a black hoodie walking down the streets of a white neighborhood is like the devil is coming. If they are walking on the same sidewalk I am walking on, they move to the other side of the street. If they are in a car immediately they locked the doors and everything, and I am like “I am not going to steal your car or shoot at you, I am just walking.” Even if they are inside their house they lock everything, you can hear when they closed the doors, lock the windows, and close the blinds. I just watch sideways and see a small space on the windows between the blinds, of course they are looking at me to see if I passed through their house or if I am standing outside waiting to do something. They made me laugh, I actually got use to this kind of situations, what I do is keep on walking with my head up to the sky, looking straight. Being Mexican is not a shame, being brown is a gift.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Racial Profiling

  • It's wrong, inappropriate, shouldn't be done." Said ex-senator John AshcroftCheney: "It's the sense of anger and frustration and rage that would go with knowing that the only reason you were stopped ... was because of the color of your skin....

  • "Largest number of Americans angry about racial profiling are law-abiding black people who feel that they are stopped and questioned because the police regard all black people with undue suspicion. They feel that they are the victims of a negative stereotype.

  • Categories "age" and "race" are both rather fuzzy (define "young") and are both useful predictors of criminality.

  • To be racist, the law would have to specifically target one particular race of people. 
  • No one can bear the intellectual responsibility of that argument because that's not what the intent of the Arizona legislature was and that's quite clear.It is an immigration bill, not a brown people bill or a Mexican bill.
  • All Arizona is guilty of here is trying to deal with problems within its border, and trying to do so in a country in which the federal government has totally abandoned its responsibility to deal effectively with the subject of illegal immigration.
  • “No matter how famous/rich u r, ur still a 2nd class citizen if ur Black in Cape Town,'' Lindiwe Suttle. 

  • Cape Town is an indelible symbol of the beauty and promise of post-apartheid South Africa. Beyond its gorgeous scenery and great wines, its very logo -- an outline of majestic Table Mountain superimposed over a rainbow -- emphasizes its historic mix of races and cultures, and its most famous resident, Desmond Tutu, is revered as a symbol of tolerance, inclusiveness and forgiveness.many black South.

  • For many Africans, this city represents something very different: the last bastion of white rule.

Conclusion
Do not judge a book by its cover. Racial profiling is racist, is illegal, is inappropriate, is wrong and it should not be done. When you judge a person based on their appearance, look or on the outfit they have on, you are kind of stereotyping that person; you are not giving her or him the opportunity to express or explain their style. Just by looking the outside of a person does not mean that you already know how they are; you do not know what their life is, or what reasons they have to dress or look like that. Although, people should not be judging others based on their race, that is not fair, because we do not choose if we want to be Mexicans, Asians, Jews or African-Americans; we are born this way, and we cannot change who we are. Racial profiling is the action that most violates a person’s civil right, and ironically members of the government, and  police officers, are the ones that violate those rights, I thought their job was  make sure that everyone has the same rights, liberties and options; but no, they judge a person just based on their color, their outfit, their image. This is not okay and it is not fair, because everyone should have the same rights and the same liberties. People should learn to be more tolerant especially in this country, because this is a multiracial country where you can find every type of people.