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Yailet Gomez
Jennifer Rodrick
English 114B
3/30/16

Feeling Shamed For How We Look

Racism is alive and well. I know this is something we hear all the time by every single
form of media but there are people who believe that racism had died out. Its not always racism,
people are targeted because of their religion
as well. Acording to nbc news and the FBI
uniform crime reports, race in incidents of
hate crime in the US from 1995 to 2012
have a percentage of 54.4% amongst
blacks, 16.3% amongst whites and 10.3%
toward Hispanics. From 1995 to 2000, Jews have the highest count of incidents toward them at a
percentage of 78.6% out of 24,872 people whose crime was reported. Something that is said a lot
is that white people are privileged, that they shouldnt feel oppressed when things dont go their
way because theyre white. All these ideas though are very much influenced due to media and
what we see on a daily basis but racism is everywhere no matter what skin color.
There are things that are done by others that cross the line. In the case of Shareena Rahat,
a woman from Guyana who was on her way to an Astoria mosque to break Ramadan fast
according to alternate.org. This might not make any sense as to how its related to project space
but it will. Rahat has a daughter who said to her, she doesnt want to wear hijab or scarf on the
way to mosque, even in the car. They are scared someone will attack us or pull out a gun on us.
This woman was also spat at. This is where everything ties in together. Her 11 year old daughter

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wanted to put aside her religion in order to survive living in New York. An 11 year old feels the
need to hide a huge part of her life because someone with no decency thinks that it is correct to
harm an innocent person. Racism is alive and real. There are people out there who say it doesnt
exist but those are the ones who are probably privileged. In the story we read Black men and
space, the narrator explains how his first victim was a woman who ran away even though he
had done nothing wrong to her.
I have been at fault of this. One time I was waiting in my car while my boyfriend at the
time was pumping gas and a man came up to me and said nice car, its new I immediately
locked the doors because it was late at night and because of where I was. The man noticed I had
locked the doors and he had mentioned it to me. After my boyfriend had pumped the gas, the
man went up to him and spoke to him and my boyfriend said sorry man, its her car not mine
and we drove away. Things like these are portrayed in movies. We usually see the white family
driving through whats considered a dangerous neighborhood and right away they lock their
car. It took me a while to notice that these thugs dont care about the people like that. The only
reason why they might come up to you is if you are on their territory or if they think you
belong to a rival gang. For all I know, the man at the gasoline station needed some extra crash,
but just like with Rahat we are at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Phoenix Williams was 13 when this happened to him roughly a year ago. He was going
to a fieldtrip with Bloomfield Hills Middle School near Detroit when two bullies began harassing
him. The kids used racial slurs toward him including Ill give you a piece of candy if you call
Phoenix a dirty nigger. Things like this are damaging to a kids mental state, especially at such a
young age. Just like with the 11 year old from my previous example, it hits children the most
hard because they still have their whole lives ahead of them and they will have to live thinking

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about their safety always. Kids are evil especially at this age, they boys threated to break
Williams phone if he snitched on them and threw his hat to the back of the bus Phoenix was
recording the whole incident on his phone and its

obvious that the

reason these two kids threw the phone was to destroy

the evidence. If

theres no evidence theres no huge consequence. The

wouldnt have spoken up and cases like this

sourrounding children
are seen

everywhere because they fear they could

get bullied to by no fault of their own. The most heartbreaking part about this was that the two
young boys who harassed Williams were only suspended for a short period of time and returned
to school and werent given other punishments. His mother of course wanted a further deeper
punishment for those two boys. Their punishment wasnt fair enough, and according to his
mother, she would like for both of the students to be expelled and for the staff and the parents
and the students to also go through training in diversity. No mother should have to see their
children fear their surroundings because of their color. Williams mentioned, I really dont feel
safe going back to school at all. He knows his attackers are roaming the school and he would
have to face them every single day and constantly be reminded of the attack they put him
through. No one should have to live like that, so yes the children should have been expelled.
Being prejudice towards some ones religion is also very, very much alive. In the incident
with Rahat, mentioned up above, she said this happened to her in New York. 911 happened in
New York and for a really long time, Muslims have been targeted for being at fault of 911
happening. Non- Muslims are also blamed for something they had nothing to do with. In the case
of Jagroop Sinhg he was assaulted because of his religion. Judge Stephen Southwood mentions
The turban is the crowning glory of the Sikhs. For Sikhs, the head and the turban are sacred,

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they must not be touched or insulted in any way. I had no prior knowledge about Sikhs and
what the turban meant to them apart from knowing its part of their religion. After reading this
first sentence, I felt like it was foreshadowing what the rest of the article is about. In Melbourne a
couple by names of Angeline Kim Sollitt 44 and Michael John Arbouin 40 have been sentenced
to nine months in jail for attacking Singh. It was reported that Singh a taxi driver, picked up the
couple from a yacht club last November when they incident began. Sollitt began by saying,
Youre in Australia, mate, this is not your country. If you want to live in Australia, take this off.
At first he kept on driving and didnt mind them but eventually he pulled over because Sollitt got
out and yelled grab his turban, rip it off and ran to Singh and pulled it off. When I began
reading this, I had a feeling this would happen. Whats even worse is that they are two grown
adults pulling stunts on someone whos is doing their job and doing them a favor. It is so
immature and this is something an ignorant teenager would do, to two 40 year olds who are
probably going through a mid-life crisis. This didnt stop there, they also said to him You see
what happens with your turban? Now Im going to rip your hair off. This man has every right to
wear his turban because he has freedom of religion and its very disrespectful for someone to
harass and disrespect his god.
In conclusion racism still exist and it will be around for probably a really long due to
hatred people have toward one another. We as people have to be more open minded and
understand that no one is the same. No two people look nor act the same because we are our own
individuals. Rahats daughter was so influenced in a bad way by the man that terrorized her
causing her to not what to show who she really is as a person. Statistics show that the most
harassed and attacked ethnicity are black people and those recorded statistics were from 1994 to
2012 with a 54.4% of attacks. Imagine now how high that percentage would be? Statistics would

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be through the rough, especially with all the police brutality and unjust shootings. Not only are
people being targeted for their skin color, but also because of their religion even though they
have every right to practice it.

Works Cited

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Web. 30 Mar. 2016.

<http://thumbs.mic.com/NWM5ODVmM2NmYyMvWU1sTjh0Qmh3UWt3c21ZNGNGcnBW
WGF3U3c0PS8yNngxMTg6MTkwNHgxMDM3LzEyODB4NjIwL2ZpbHRlcnM6cXVhbGl0eS
g3NSkvaHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5hbWF6b25hd3MuY29tL3BvbGljeW1pYy1pbWFnZXMvZGJoeH
E1Y3Q1dWF3bXJjZmxzZm94ZnA1dWFydWpicmk5MXJ5Z2picmxqanptd3JjMnNkM3ZqcGd
yaXBqZjJvYS5qcGc.jpg>.
Web. <http://www.rantlifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/oppressed.jpg>.
"This Black Teenager's Bullying Case Shows Racism Is Alive and Well in America's
Schools." Mic. 14 Apr. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
"Hate Crime in America, by the Numbers." NBC News. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
"Couple Sentenced to Nine Months for Racially Abusing Sikh Taxi Driver." NDTV.com.
17 July 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
"Investigation Underway into Racist Bullies at Bloomfield Hills School." WDIV. 13 Apr.
2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2016. <http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/investigation-underway-intoracist-bullies-at-bloomfield-hills-school>. Video regarding Phoenix Williams attack.