Cultural Diversity as an African-American

Cultural Diversity

As an African-American female growing up in Meadowbrook in Chesterfield County, Virginia, people from outside of Virginia sometimes assume that I experienced discomfort as part of a minority group. While I cannot deny that there have been certain experiences when I felt as if I was being treated in a discriminatory manner, for the most part I have not felt disconnected from my community because of my race. Instead, I have felt like a member of my immediate community.

For the most part, the citizens in Chesterfield County do not look like me. "The racial makeup of the county is 76.74% white, 17.77% Black or African-American, 0.33% Native American, 2.37% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 1.34% from other races, and 1.41% from two or more races" ("Demographics," 2005 ). Therefore, I only look like about one-fifth of my larger community. However, I am a member of a minority group and my minority's representation in my community is not far from the actual percentage of African-Americans in American society. Therefore, I do not feel as I am underrepresented by number in my community. However, I do feel that whites are overrepresented in my community because there is a small presence of other minority groups in my community. In this way, I feel like, as an African-American, I look similar to members of my community, but that, as a minority, I do not look similar to a vast majority of my community. Furthermore, the fact that there do not appear to be many people that consider themselves to be of mixed-raced ancestry, helps reinforce a feeling that there may be some de facto segregation occurring in my community. However, I feel an overall sense of friendliness in my community. In fact, it comes as no surprise to me that my fellow residents considered the friendliness of the community as one of Chesterfield County's major assets ("2004 Citizen Survey Results," 2005).

The government leaders in my community are mostly white. I have not had personal experiences with most of the leaders, therefore it is difficult for me to assess whether or not they treat members of my racial group respectfully. Therefore, I looked to the citizen survey in order to determine how the other members of my community felt they were being treated. In 2004, 94.2% of the people in the county felt that quality of life in Chesterfield County was excellent or good ("2004 Citizen Survey Results," 2005). In fact, 89% of people surveyed believed that Chesterfield County was a better place to live than the other places they had lived ("2004 Citizen Survey Results," 2005). More telling, 92.3% of people believed that Chesterfield County was a good place to raise children ("2004 Citizen Survey Results," 2005). Despite feeling satisfied with quality of life, close to half of all people surveyed indicated difficulties contacting their county officials and dissatisfaction with the way the county was being managed ("2004 Citizen Survey Results," 2005). However, the respondents also indicated that they found that county employees treated them politely and responded to their needs ("2004 Citizen Survey Results," 2005). This may be because county employees appear to be composed of roughly the same racial composition as the county.

Despite people appearing satisfied with their treatment by county employees, I have to admit some dissatisfaction with how certain members of the community leadership treat members in my minority group. Although I have not personally experienced the phenomena, members of my family and members of my peer group have indicated that they have been treated suspiciously by police officers because of race. To me, the most interesting part of those stories is that both African-American and white police officers appear to engage in the same sort of racial profiling. However, the fact is that my community, Meadowbrook, has a higher-than-average number of people on probation, which might give police a foundation for suspicion.

One of the concerns I have about my community is how community leaders treat non-Hispanic minorities. For example, although only "2.93% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race," and 2.37% were Asian, resources on the county website were offered in Spanish, but not in any Asian languages ("Demographics," 2005). It appears that county resources are not aimed at servicing those smaller minority groups.

More than my race, I feel as if my gender and socio-economic status separate me from the leadership in my community. I feel like, even where there are not African-American leaders, people would be willing to place an African-American in certain power positions. In contrast, I feel like there are certain positions, for example the role of county sheriff, where the least-qualified man would still be elected over a highly qualified woman. Furthermore, I feel like my socio-economic status separates me from the leadership of my community. The leaders in my community appear to be from a higher socio-economic group, and my perception is that many of the relationships essential to becoming and remaining a leader are those that exist between members of the higher socio-economic groups.

In addition to the community leaders, members of the community tend to marginalize members of those smaller minority groups. One of the weaknesses of Meadowbrook in general is the lack of religious, neighborhood, and community organizations ("Meadowbrook," 2004). These resources are even more difficult for members of those smaller minority groups to access. In addition, there is some racism towards members of the smaller minority groups. I have heard members of my own community refer to Asians and Hispanics in a derogatory manner. However, I have not witnessed any overt acts of discrimination against members of those minority groups.

In contrast, I have witnessed overt acts of discrimination against my own minority group and by my minority group. Within my race, I have noticed discrimination against whites. For example, when an African-American friend of mine began dating a white woman, his mother stopped speaking with him and many of our friends gave him a hard time. Of course, the discrimination goes both ways; his girlfriend's parents kicked her out of the house. In fact, it appears that race relations in my community are okay until one racial group feels threatened by members of another group. The area where this seems to occur most frequently seems to be in close interpersonal relationships.

One of the ways in which I feel like Chesterfield County is progressive is that it appears to make an effort to be racially inclusive in its publications and manuals. Pictures include members of minority groups and people of both sexes. In addition, resources for public services are not targeted towards any specific race. To me, this is important because minorities are generally overrepresented among people seeking social services such as welfare, and the inclusion of all races in the related literature prevents marginalization of any group.

That said, I do have problems with the portrayal of African-Americans and other minorities in Chesterfield County text books. For example, our history textbooks downplay the role of African-Americans in American history. There is a cursory acknowledgment of the role of African-Americans, but little in-depth coverage of African-American inventors or social leaders. Furthermore, the history textbooks give little more than a passing glance at the institution of slavery. The fact is that Virginia was built with the blood, sweat, and tears of hundreds of thousands of enslaved African-Americans. America would not be the country it is today, both good and bad, if it had not relied on the forced labor of millions of Americans. To ignore the impact of slavery on American history belittles the impact that African-Americans had on the creation of the United States. Furthermore, ignoring the realities of slavery makes current race issues appear frivolous or insignificant. An isolated act of racial discrimination in 2005 may not be of much significance. However, when you place that act against a 200-year history of slavery followed by 100 years of legal and de-facto segregation, those acts become more significant. Therefore, I am unsatisfied with the way that the text books selected by my community treat my race.

Furthermore, I am unsatisfied with the way that my textbooks approach women. Women's contributions to American history have been significant, but are largely ignored or commented upon in passing. While the accomplishments and sacrifices of American women may have been in the background to those of American men, they combined to make history possible. For example, many are familiar with Rosie the Riveter and the fact that World War II marked an increase of women in the workplace, which led to the feminist movement of the 1960s and eventually led to the majority of mothers working outside of the home. These issues are addressed in text books. However, the work by Margaret Sanger to distribute birth control information to American women is largely ignored in my community's textbooks, even though birth control was every bit as instrumental to the women's movement as working outside of the home.

History textbooks are not the only ones that ignore the contributions of women and racial minorities. Literature classes focus mainly on the works of dead white guys, and science talks about the accomplishments of dead white guys. While there are token mentions of the works of other races, they are not given equal representation. Furthermore, many of the classics chosen contain antiquated attitudes about race. However, I am against censorship. Stories do not lose their value because of discriminatory depictions of African-Americans; instead they capture a portion of the relationship between the races at that time. For example, Harper Lee is honest about race discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird, but the racist language she uses captures a feeling and goes to the heart of the book. I would just like to see some more books from the point-of-view of those in the minority. Finally, some schools offer specialized courses or specialized months. An African-American literature course or women's history month, while well-intentioned, do not really address the root of the problem, which is that our schools are failing to include minority contributions to history, science, the arts, and literature.

One of the ways that my community does include people like me is in the representations in some forms of media. Television anchors include members of my gender and race. However, looking through the newspapers available in Chesterfield County, it appears that those columns with pictures near the by-line are written almost exclusively by white people. I am not sure what races are included in those articles that do not feature pictures in the by-line. More telling, even though there are very wealthy African-Americans in Chesterfield County, the society pages focus almost exclusively on white people. One part of the mass media is even worse; almost all major network television shows are about white people. Even those that include minorities usually under-represent minority presence. However, other elements of the mass media, especially local radio, fairly represent African-Americans.

In fact, if I could make different aspects of my community as fairly representative as radio, I think that would go a long way towards healing some of the racial and gender conflicts and issues that are present in my community. In our textbook, Healey brings up the ideas of both assimilation and pluralism. I do not think that either one, by itself, is the answer to the racial problems that plague our country. Instead, I think that there is something to be said about both celebrating diversity, and for creating the idea of a typical American.