I grew up learning not to judge someone by what gender, race, religion, or preferences they might have. I was taught at a very young age the importance of the Golden Rule. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that not everyone had the same up bringing as me. I hate it, but I know that somewhere out there, there are still parents that tell their children 'We don't associate with those people...'. Everytime I hear a race joke, it makes me SO mad. I've seen people tell them, then, just at the other end of the lunch table, or across the room, some kid's or an adult's head will sink a little lower, because just maybe it pertained to them.

All people care about these days is being loud and obnoxious and being heard and being liked, or thought comical. Last time I checked, putting someone down because of where they come from is not okay. What if someone went up to white people everyday and reminded them of how they used to beat the life out of slaves and foreigners, and how some of their grandparents might have been members of the Ku Klux Klan who saught out people that were not part of the 'White Supremacy?' That they killed thousands of women and men that might have been fathers and mothers and whose children were then orphans whom probably grew up to meet the same fate? I don't hear stuff like that in the hallways everyday at school.

I'm part Japanese and part Cherokee. And sure, I get the Mulan and Jackie Chan jokes at school, but some of the things other people get said about them? Its awful.

I couldn't be someone ethnic in the media light right now. I would probably be in jail for punching someone.
Our President, Obama, is black, and his ancestors originated in the East. This does not mean he is dumb, incompetent, unintelligent, or unable to make decisions regarding our country. I would like to see all the people that draw charicatures of him as a monkey, or worse, sitting in that White House, making the calls he makes everyday. You don't have to agree with him, or even like him, but he does deserve respect.

Everyone makes snap judgements, whether they realize it at the time or not. I am not excluded from this. However, it makes me sick to my stomach at what some of the mean hurtful things I hear people say in the hallways at school just because of how someone is dressed, or their weight, or who they are friends with.

Growing up in the family I did, and the very first church we went to when we moved to Alabama, we met all types of people from all different back grounds. My church I go to now is very similar to that one. We have many extremely close family friends that used to be addicts to drugs or alcohol, and what not. We also have people, people whom I consider close enough to be family, who are gay. I'm not going to say whether I believe it is right or not, but I know that some of those people are some of the best I have ever known, and I wish I could introduce them to everyone.

My parents are some of the most open people I know. My mom told me once when she was in high school, that it was in the midst of 'not being cool to be associated with black people' time. She had a best friend whom she went everywhere with who was black. She said she would get strange looks from people, and they would ask her why she hung around her. But she never abandoned her friendship, or her belief that discrimination is wrong. I tihnk she even said she lost a few other "friends" because of that.

Discrimination is WRONG, and I can't handle it anymore. I'm not afraid to call someone out about it. I have in the past, and have become more distant from some of the people I used to call friends because of it. This issue bothers me more than almost any other.


'Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.' -Proverbs 10:12