Tony Jackson Answer I Am Not the Stereotype

In the suburb that I spent most of my high school career I was in the small percentage of the blacks students that went to the school. Many of the black students at my school were somewhat of stereotypes. They were loud, mean and always had to be the center of attention in the hall way before class started or at lunch for most of the period. During lunch or in the hallway they would dance in provocative ways, yell and scream at each other and the other teachers or they would play loud music that used language that wasn’t appropriate in school. They dressed in bright baggy clothes and the girls wore the colorful weaves. Francisco’s drawing “He’d drawn an idealized, low-rider-style gangster with a bald head Ray-Ban sunglasses, handlebar mustache and tattoos.” Pg. 199 This is what he sees in his culture so that is what he was used to and that what was culture that he lived around so that’s what he per traded in his work and personality.
They were talked about in a negative way by the white students or the more proper black students. I was used to being around black “ghetto” people coming from the school I was at before I transferred so I would talk to them but not when they were in the hallways and not for a long period of time in lunch. I was ashamed of how they looked to the rest of the school but I understood why they were like that. That was my peoples culture they can’t really help it if that’s the way they lived. I moved past it by just being me and not worrying about what people had to say about my people and their culture. It’s their culture and their life who are they to judge.