No Need

I really don’t take it to heart, but one time I was playing basketball with my friends and a group of white Americans were messing around on the playground. One of the girls was screaming, “Make me some tacos!” And I just felt like, okay, I just came to play basketball. There is no need for racism here. I think comments like this are because of ignorance, mostly. Most people aren’t educated on that type of topic. I guess I can’t really say if they’re educated or not cause I’m not in their position. I think it’s just more that they aren’t taught by their parents that they are equal with everyone, no matter their skin, or gender, or religion. Treat everybody the same. In elementary school there wasn’t much talk about race, religion, or color. We should talk about these things even in preschool. Personally, I think they’re a good thing, but I don’t think the equity lessons are making a big difference or change. Most of the time every class you’re just sitting there listening to the teacher, and you don’t really state your opinion about it. We need to work on some way for us to communicate, some way to really deal with it, not just say, oh, don’t say that.  

"When you hear a racist comment, speak up, go up and approach them, and tell them you can’t say that in this scenario, it makes me uncomfortable."

 State your opinion about it, make them feel uncomfortable also because of the thing they just said.
We know people in our grade who make racist remarks or jokes that they don’t mean to be racist, but it’s racist. And sometimes we laugh at it, brush it off, but we know it’s not right. How do we deal with racism in comedy? That’s a tough one. I’ll talk for my race. For Hispanics, there are Mexican shows where they make jokes, but sometimes they’ll say stereotypical things that us Mexicans do in our countries, and it’s funny because I can relate. But it’s racist. It’s racist and you still laugh. Where’s the line? It’s kind of tough to decide. If I’m in a group of white people and they make a Mexican joke, I’m like okay, what can I say? There’s not much to say. It comes down to a lot of other factors. Do you like the people? Do you care about the people? If you don’t care you’re not going to take the time to explain, you’re just going to walk away. For me personally, in my past, I have said a couple of dumb, ignorant things. My parents were there to discipline me. You need an authority, or somebody that you respect to really analyze what you’re saying so you can change.

Angel Reyes