Ethan Flechner,
Milwaukee, WI
I’m a white man and I act very differently then most white people I see in stories and on the news. I act differently then most people I see. My race doesn’t automatically mean that I’m going to be formal or what white people are generically showed as. Throughout your life the way you act changes by how you feel, what you’ve gone through and how you dealt with it. I live in Milwaukee, a very segregated city. My neighborhood I full of people mostly of Hispanic heritage. It’s a very bad neighborhood, garbage, gunshots. It’s not the best. Even though I grew up there I don’t act how other people who grew there did. Many people in my neighborhood, even though they are mostly all the same race act so differently. I grew up dealing with so much, anxiety, stress, depression, and self harm. I was a horrible problem solver, and still am. Going through that and solving it gave me a very dark humor. I make jokes that would be deemed offensive to many. I’m usually kind as long as I’m not being weird saying stuff that most people would go “His parents must be disappointed.” I’ve grown up and realized that race doesn’t define the way you act but the way you’ve grown up and how you deal with everything does.
