Although others have attempted to persuade me otherwise, I’ve always believed in the equality of all people and have never hesitated to say so. There isn’t a single person on this earth over which I’d claim superiority. From my point of view, no one sex, race, or religion is better or worse than another is. I take pride in the fact that I’ve never held a bias or discriminated against anyone in my entire life. I believe that everyone possesses the potential for good and no one should be made to suffer simply because he or she is different. All life should be respected and considered precious. However, throughout the course of my life, I’ve learned that my father’s side of the family neither accepts nor appreciates my opinion on this particular subject. They’d prefer to let bitterness and hatred consume them from the inside out rather than make an effort to forgive and keep an open mind. I’ve finally come to understand my family’s perspective after many years of thought and argument. Nevertheless, I still don’t agree with their extreme prejudice and I doubt that I ever will.
Racial discrimination is a concept that I became familiar with while I was still very young. I spent every other weekend at my grandparents
’ three-story house in Jersey City, NJ. Half of my entire family lived in this one house—my father and two uncles occupied the third floor, my grandparents lived on the second floor, and another uncle and his wife rented the first floor. In addition, my aunt and her husband lived only a few blocks away and their visits were a common occurrence. Opportunities for them to make racist comments presented themselves daily. Any mention, suggestion, or hint of an Afro-American person in a newspaper or magazine, on the television or radio, or from another person was a perfect excuse for any one or all of my family members to launch into a tirade about the evils of ‘spooks’ and ‘niggers’. After I became old enough to ask the right questions and do a bit of research, it didn’t take long for me to realize that not everyone in the world felt the same way as my family did, though a great many people were practiced in the art of prejudice. Seeing both sides of the situation allowed me to form my own opinions but I kept my mouth shut at my grandparents’ house for fear of turning my own flesh and blood against me. Eventually, I scraped enough backbone together to ask my father why he and the others all hated black people so much. He responded by recounting an experience from his youth in which his family, although hard working, had less money than an unemployed black family that collected welfare and food stamps. Just by telling me this sto
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