My experiences with diversity and social grouping have never been negative. I cannot recall a time when a group that I was a part of was looked down upon. The only scenario that compares closest to a minority group in my life is the different levels of grades in elementary and middle school. This is very common for most grade schools; the lower you are in grade, the more you may get teased or harassed. When I was a student at Greenbelt Middle School, the eighth graders constantly picked on us and teased us.
Sometimes, the tension between the two grades would be so high that some individuals would decide to fight each other. I guess the upperclassman at my middle school wanted to scare the lower grades and show a sense of ownership and leadership. The title eighth-grader was something that was really important to them. However, when the upperclassman left the school and the lower classman were converted to being an upperclassman, we broke away from that minority group. The months of harassment, teasing, and physical confrontations caused the original class to act the same way towards the new generation.
Now that my class was known as the biggest grade, the only thing to do was show the younger grade how it feels to be in middle school. This is the closest thing to me being categorized as a minority or belonging to a minority group. Not being an actual minority in today’s economy, I could only imagine how it feels to be one that doesn’t get as many rights as I do. An example of this is immigrants from foreign countries. These countries can consist of anywhere from Russia, China, Mexico, or Nigeria.
Most of them probably don’t know much English, don’t have a lot of money, don’t have the proper skills to enroll in a good-paying job, and many more. The relationships in their life could be hard due to the fact they aren’t American natives. The friendships would be hard because not everybody is like them or has characteristics similar to them. What an immigrant might like or feel comfortable doing isn’t always accepted by other people. Being an immigrant in a new world or country is one of the worst minority groups to be placed in.
The 2013 film Django Unchained with Jamie Foxx displayed a set of minorities. The movie takes place in an old-time America, most likely the late 1800s’ to early 1900s’. There were still slaves being sold to house and plantation owners at the time. Black people were treated in terrible ways that included whipping, physical abuse, branding, improper confinement, and brutal death. Caucasians in America were seen as the group that was in charge and the blacks were the servants. The dictatorship over colored people back then showed me that being included in a minority wasn’t a good thing.
Another example of a book or film I feel shows a sense of minority would have to be The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. This movie takes place back when the Germans were enslaving the Jewish people. The Jewish boy was enslaved in a concentration camp and only allowed to leave when it was time for him to work. The work that was given to Jews in the movie also showed a great deal of minority. They did fieldwork where their hands got dirty, they cleaned bathrooms and facilities for rich German households, and they only got rewarded in small portions of food. The little boy in the movie only had one outfit to wear and that was his old torn-out pajamas.
All minority groups have negatives to their lifestyle, the way they are treated by others, and the way that they are looked upon. An ideal society to me would not look at the unnecessary aspects of a human being. These aspects include race, gender, age, sexual orientation, economic status, and other things that we allow to separate us today. An ideal society accepts one another, treats each and every person in that environment equally, and distributes fair portions. A society that has a job available for everyone and a place for everyone is one that is ideal.
A society that includes no groups formed by hatred for others is an ideal society. Individually, I could open up to others and most people in my environment. I can choose to be more social and less anti-social. I could also learn not to judge a book by its cover, all of these are things that I could do to make a society ideal for me.
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