Auto-ethnography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Auto-ethnography - Essay Example This was the exact description of my childhood days. No limits to govern me and no color to choose from all the children were my friends and I really boasted to have them. Going back home from school one afternoon, my friend and I were waiting for the usual train at the station. When the train arrived and we were rushing to get in one young man shouted at my friend, ‘hey, negro get in fast’. At the moment that did not click in my mind that it was a racial attack and as I tried to calm my really offended friend I embarked to know what was wrong with it. My friend is black and this was the first outright racial abuse that I had seen directed at her. As the days progressed I learnt much about racial discrimination and the selection by race that is so much engrossed in our society. I had been brought up from a background that had no racial bias and when I joined college I found that some students really discriminated others and even went ahead to choose their friends from the filtered group of friends from the ‘favored race’. This is why I decided I had to start a campaign against racism. Race should not be a factor to measure so meone’s ability or determine her strengths. Today I am glad for the step I took some years back to sensitize my friends against racism. We have a group of multiracial students and we are doing great in the field. Our first step is to fight individualism. Tocqueville defines individualism as ‘calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends, with this little society formed to his task; he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself’ (39). With this understanding we have to take the initiative and impact change on the society as it is solely our mandate to ensure that