Katelyn Crombie,
CA.
I never cared about race until I was in college. Before then, I was adopted from China and grew up in a family that taught me to love everyone, regardless of appearances. I was also blessed with attending a high school that was racially diverse, despite our predominately white neighborhood, and these classmates reinforced the idea that personality matters most. So I never thought twice about race until my freshman year in college, where I met people who were supposedly “anti-racist.” These people challenged everything that I knew. To them, I wasn’t me, I was a minority voice. I was to be revered, defended, and protected against any “internalized majority prejudice.” My natural Chinese heritage was something to be flaunted and my adopted Scottish heritage was to be scorned as “privileged white culture.” If I did anything they didn’t agree with, they would express their disappointment by implying that I had somehow agreed with racists and thus betrayed my race. So now I find that I’m always second-guessing myself. Am I being racist? Is the other person being racist? Am I defending the minority I represent? Am I wrong for wanting a Scottish Heritage event, simply because it’s “white culture”? Maybe this is the price I pay for being more “open-minded.” At the very least, I still want that Scottish Heritage event. Scotland is a beautiful country with a beautiful culture, and if anyone protests, I can always defend it by saying that the Scots were discriminated against too.
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