Think Piece #1

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to post the think piece on here.. so I am going to do it anyways... (:

My first thought after reading Johnson’s article was that we have dug ourselves a very deep hole. I never really thought about how big and bad the racism problem is in America until now. This article really put it into a different perspective. Being a white American is considered more superior than any other type of American and we have brought that assumption into every day thoughts. The whole idea of racism has gotten out of hand. We have created a problem that is so big we do not know how to fix it now. We could fix it but we would not even know where to begin.



To me, the problem of racism stems way back to the days of Rosa Parks and when she sat in the white section on the segregated bus. I think the whole problem of racism started with superior white men owning slaves. I don’t know why we thought that was ever okay but it was not.


In the article by Johnson on page 8 the author states, “She also can’t go for a walk alone at night without thinking about her safety a lot more than I would – without planning what to do in case a man approaches her with something other than good will.” This quote really bothered me. As a teenage white female I would never go for a walk alone at night, if I did that then I would be pretty much asking to get kidnapped. The author states in his writing that he is a white male and I think that from that statement he was being racist towards black females. I didn’t appreciate the quote from the text because it really made me ask why he would just say that about a black female walking alone. If I white female walks alone at night she could easily get killed, raped or kidnapped just as easily as a Chinese female or a Black female. The whole idea is that you are a female walking alone at night, simply not a good idea. The topic of racism is a tough topic for an author to talk about without sounded racist himself but this author did not impress me at all with that quote.


At one point the author Johnson discusses that at retail stores, grocery stores, banks and at similar places white people are more likely to get faster service than any other race. The sad part is that this is very true. It is usually white people working at these stores and they are more likely to service their own race before any other race. It seems like this never ending battle because if a black person worked at a grocery store he/she would be likely to service a black person before a white one. The author also states something about being in a store or a bank and seeing a black person in the same place as you and then you start thinking if that black person is up to no good or stealing something. I find this statement to be very true and I admit I am guilty to thinking this sometimes. If I am in line at the bank and all of a sudden a black man comes walking in, I do get a little bit nervous. I grew up watching movies, hearing stories and people talking about robberies and shootings and it is almost always a black male that is responsible for the crime. I am not saying that I am racist but I am saying that growing up as a white person I was told by teachers and friends certain things that lead me to believe that certain black males are bad people.


In the introduction the author states that, “All of us are part of the problem. There is no way to avoid that as long as we live in the world. But we could also make ourselves part of the solution if we only knew how.” This quote is a perfect explanation to the racism problem in America. White people have caused this problem many years ago and we have caused ourselves a very big problem that we could not have avoided but we can be part of the solution, however the problem is too complex for us to even begin to find a solution.