The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

My sister is a single mom with a son who is 4yrs old.  My nephew was born with some GI complications.  He spent his first month in a hospital in California.  My mom and I were in Washington, where we still live.  My sister was working in California and attempting to relocate closer to family.  During her transition my husband and I helped her out by taking over care for her son and overseeing his medical treatment.  I was also 8 months pregnant.  While in my care my nephew became sick again and spent another month 1/2 in the hospital. The social worker at the hospital had set up community resources upon discharge to help me support my nephew at home since he needed ongoing care.  Since I was responsible for his care, his medical assistance and other supports were in my name.  One requirement was that my nephew drinks a special formula that helps babies gain weight.  Since it is for babies with nutritional challenges the formula is very very expensive.  More than twice the cost of regular Enfamil.  I was referred to WIC to cover the cost.  My mom drove me to my first appointment at the WIC office.  When we met with the counselor who completed the intake she made a comment that really disturbed me.  She stated “When you come in to the office we expect respect and patience.  If you come in like where’s my checks, I want my checks now, then we are not going to help you.”  As she said this she was rolling her neck as if imitating someone with a negative attitude.  It caught me off guard at first.  I asked her, "why would you think I would be disrespectful?”  She replied, “we get that a lot in here so I just want to let you know our rules.”  I then told her, “I know how to conduct myself in a professional manner.  I am educated with a college degree, and work in the social service field just as you.  I would never come in to an office yelling or demanding anything from anyone.” 

I’m unsure of the exact reason she made those statements.  Maybe because she thought I was poor; which would mean she has a bias against those of less fortune.  Or because I am a black woman; which would mean she has a bias against black women.  Or perhaps for both reasons.  I personally believe that since I had state medical insurance in my name she categorized me for that reason without knowing anything more about me. But whatever the reason, I was very unhappy when I left the office.  I felt that she made an assumption about my character based on appearance and the fact that I needed WIC to help with the cost of formula for my nephew.  She assumed I was poor, uneducated, unprofessional, and disrespectful.   In that moment I felt judged for needing assistance.  Because she was in an authoritative position it felt as if she looked down upon me.  Had she known anything about my personal life she likely would not have made those statements.  My mom and I discussed this on the way home which helped me get over that experience.  I did see the woman on other occasions when I went in to the WIC office but did not have any more interaction with her.   

I was glad that I spoke up in that situation because I think she needed to know that she should never make assumptions such as that about people.  Hopefully this changed her approach to others who are provided assistance in the program.  She should interact with people on an individual basis without carrying prior experiences in to new introductions. 

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

Two weeks ago a friend of mine decided to have a small get together at her home.  I knew all the girls who were attending.  I would consider two of them my friends and the others acquaintances.  I was the only African American girl other than the host who is bi-racial.  I was having a good time.  The atmosphere was light and fun.  One girl who is always a comedian was dancing to the music in a joking manner and we were all laughing.  The radio station played a song called Dougie? (I think)  It’s a rap song that’s out right now and I hear sometimes when listening to the Radio.  There is a dance that goes along with it.   Anyhow, one of the girls said “Oh I like this song.  Come on Leon’e show us how to do the Dougie.”  Well…let’s just say anyone who knows me knows that I cannot dance because I don’t have rhythm.  Also I don’t listen to rap music unless it’s on the radio, which is not very often.  So I am way out of the rap loop.  I replied “I don’t know the Dougie because I’m not cool.”  She laughed and the gathering continued.  I knew at the time that she made either a joke or an assumption, but which ever, there were racial indications behind this comment.  I wasn’t too upset about this because I thought she probably was unaware of what had taken place, especially because we were amongst friends.

This incident did not change my perception of stereotypes.  I have encountered and witnessed many levels of racism, prejudices, and stereotyping.  I do believe that my response to microaggressions with underlying messages of marginalization has changed, at least when directed at myself.  15years ago that experience may have hurt my feelings.  Today I feel that I am better at protecting my feelings. Part of that protection is maturity, self confidence, and understanding differences in others and those hurtful comments aren’t always intentional.  If it were a encounter that significantly bothered me I do believe that I would address it accordingly. 

Perspectives on Diversity and Culture

For this weeks blog assignment I asked 3 people about their perspectives of diversity and culture.

Holly: A 52 year old African American woman “Culture is a heritage of customs, traditions, mindsets sort of like a thread that binds a group of people together. Diversity is the blending of different customs, traditions, mindsets without altering their culture with the understanding that it is the difference that brings value to the blend. (Does that make sense?)”...

 Mahita: A 38 year old bi-racial, African American/Caucasian woman: I look at it like diversity being different types of cultures... and culture being part of our background that makes us who we are...

Al: A 31 year African American male: Diversity is being different or being the minority...culture is a standard of the majority...the majority determines if you are diverse or not.

What I have learned about culture so far in this course:

Diversity is various groups of people coming from different backgrounds, of different races, religions, and and identifications.


Diversity includes experiences and circumstances that create diversity amongst human beings such as economic and social statuses.


Diversity creates pathways to social identification classifications identities help us recognize similarities and difference within a group.


Culture as a wide range of characteristics including, but not limited to race, economics, gestures, and body language.


Surface Culture consist of the obvious outward classifications such as race or ethnicity


Deep Culture moves beyond surface cultural references and permeates attitudes and feelings derived from interpersonal relationships of influence.


Having dominance in culture sets the standard according to how others should present themselves

Cultural discontinuity has to do with losses or inabilities to continue cultural practices, ideas, or values for reasoning specific to interruptions with cultural connection.

Cultural invisibility occurs when aspects of culturally related significances are not acknowledged, not accepted, or ignored.

I believe Holly placed considerable thought in to her answer and nicely summed up some meaningful aspects of culture and diversity together. For example she clearly articulates her thoughts of culture and diversity as sharing similar components, but differ in the view one is founded in bonds and the other highlighting dissimilarities.

Al pointed out that in culture there is a majority and minority group. His statement “The majority determines if you are diverse or not” relates to the notion of dominating cultural power. Some aspects that were not highlighted by the three interviewees were the effects of cultural dominance and social classification.

I have realized that everyone has their own ideas and thoughts about culture and diversity. Even though each individualized thought and opinion is stated differently there is commonality in the meaning behind each point of view.

My Family Culture

I put a lot of thought in to this weeks blog assignment trying to figure out what items are significant to my family culture, and are valuable in my life.  The first item that I believe is a strong influential connection to my family culture is a scrap book containing recipes that my grandmother put together for her daughters.  This book contains some favorite meals from my childhood.  I would want to carry on the traditions derived from foods that my family has enjoyed for many years.  This is relevant to me because that traditions such as having large family gatherings for meals have not continued in recent years within my family.  I would like to learn some of these recipes and bring back the togetherness that once existed within our union.

The second item that I would want to take with me if is the picture book that contains photos from my childhood, in particular events that have been celebrated in my life - through college graduation.   I believe that these pictures are a way of reflecting on memories and specail traditions that my family has held.  My intention would be to carry out theses traditions once settled in a new country.   Such cultural representations include vacations, holidays, sports events, and first days of school.

The third item that I would take is the diary that I kept during my high school and early college years.  Although I haven't continued to write during most of my adult years, I occasionally look back to my entries to reflect on events and feelings that have occurred in my life and helped mold who I am today.  When reading these old passages the feelings surrounding those memories come pouring back to me.  Depending on the entry, I may even remember certain songs or cues that recollect feelings, taking me back to the moment.

If I had to choose between these three representations of my self and family I would be devastated.  Anyone who knows me well understands that I hold on to things that I consider to have sentimental value, which turns out to be many items in my life.  I'm not sure that any of these holds more value than the others.  I believe that I would feel that my rights are being ripped away with unjust decisions forcing me to choose between my possessions that have been part of my life and hold considerable meaning. I would imagine that would lead to feelings of mistrust in a new surrounding where I am not a part of  the dominant culture.  Those feelings of mistrust may also lead to feelings that this new culture of people is not open or accepting of my culture. 

This exercise has led me to think about people who are forced to leave their homes, communities, and counties to start a new life other that what the are used to living.  They have to learn to adapt to cultural changes and follow new cultural expectations that are not similar to their own while trying to preserve their own.  Whatever the reason for relocation and reformation of life, the result or feeling of emotions around these changes are common amongst all groups. 

Final Blog Assignment

Over the past eight weeks I have enjoyed listening to pod casts, exploring websites dedicated to improvement of global early childhood education, and learning of international practices, reformation and advancement of early learning. Though I was not fortunate to have connected with an international early childhood professional, I feel the information I have gained has opened my mind and expanded my knowledge of international educational experiences. I am pleased to learn of the efforts of organizations such as the Global Childcare Initiative and UNESCO, who are working with nations on developing systems according to researched best practices, where otherwise early education programs would not exist. The information that I have acquired from these such organizations I can apply to early education practices in my own professional career.

Realizing that some indigenous groups have little opportunity and accessibility to early childhood programs has enhanced my desire to advocate for children and families and help others in my community gain opportunity for early education.

Importantly, all of the programs that I researched in other nations place value in conservation and awareness of culture and back ground. This is something that I was before aware of but now can associate internationally as well. For example, in my last blog I discussed the Loipi people of Kenya and ways their early childhood program recognizes and respects cultural traditions.

Finally I will explore collaborative opportunities in early education with programs and organizations who I can continue to learn from and continue to expand my knowledge and awareness of practices and resources in the field.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

For this blog assignment I chose to review the UNESCO website, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/. This organization strives to improve education around the world maintaining the belief that education is a key to social and economic development. UNESCO leads international policy for a integrated early childhood system focusing holistically on the needs of children by efforts of reviewing and developing national policies affecting children through 8 yrs. I viewed a video that discusses a program in northern Kenya called Early Childhood Programme for The Nomadic Loipi of Northern Kenya. There are 85 community Loipi projects have serviced 27,000 children and families (UNESCO). This is project concentrates on a group of pasrtoralist and nomadic people and preparing their children for school. The participants must feel protected and welcomed in the program. The traditional cultural values are preserved while preparing children and families for interaction with the modern world. The parents, caregivers, and some trained teachers provide the structure of the program. The children learn how to play together by working on social skills. They learn about their culture through the elders in their community. The tradition in the Loipi culture focuses on story telling, riddles, and mythology as a teaching method. The centers provide an environment where parents are included and can watch their children learn and develop. Also advisers at the centers may teach parents about the importance of hygiene and clean water. The program emphasizes nutritional value making sure children are receiving a healthy balanced meal that all children need . Health services also come to the centers to vaccinate the children and parents are informed of importance of medical care. An important part of this program is a partnership with communities and families along with the Kenyan Government. Some key factors of this program such as partnership with parents and community, recognition of cultural tradition, and the emphasis of health and nutrition are paralleled in children's programs in the modern world. By focusing on a holistic approach to early childhood education and care will improve  the lives of all children exposed no matter what their background or geographic location. However there still remains a struggle globally to reaching young children in making education available and accessible. What I found surprising when exploring the website were the statistics linked to vulnerable and marginalized groups, and exclusion from education. 75 million globally children do not receive an education. 7 of 10 children live in Subsaharan Africa or South and West Asia (UNESCO). The reasons behind the problem of exclusion are poverty, gender inequality, disability, child labor, speaking a minority language, belonging to indigenous group of people, or living a nomadic or rural life style(UNESCO). I appreciate programs such as Loipi which are reaching those who would not otherwise have the educational experiences offered in their communities. My personal goal is to open a early education learning center in my local community. I would like to help establish better circumstances for those less fortunate, fostering inclusion and opportunities that account for differences of back grounds, and cultures.

Sharing Web Resources

While further exploring the National Black Child Development Institute web page http://nbcdi.org/ I encountered a link titled Literacy under the Initiatives section.  I found that NBCDI has a national early literacy public education initiative.  This program is in place to assist parents and caregivers in of African American children through age 6, in their efforts to improve academic performance.  NBCDI partners with Reading is Fundamental (RIF) http://www.rif.org/ offering early literacy training to early childhood professionals.  RIF and NBCDI together offer RIF’s Care to Read early literacy training program in four cities of NBCDI affiliates.  Those cities are Nashville, TN; Charlotte, NC; Philadelphia, PA and Albany, NY.   This information about partnership led me to look further in to the RIF website.  I found that RIF is the largest and longest running nonprofit literacy organization.   RIF is supported by organizations and programs such as U.S. Department of Education, Macy’s, Univision, Radio One, and Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, campaigning to improve literacy skills in African-American, Hispanic, and Native American communities.  The campaign stresses the importance of developing the language skills of young children to help better prepare them for success in school and life.  RIF is motivated to changing the lives of children through their literacy initiative. Nearly two-thirds of low-income families in the U.S.  do not own books (Reading is Fundamental INC).  RIF delivers free books and other resources to children and families.   RIF has a network of 400,000 volunteers.  These volunteers are reaching children in places such as schools, homeless shelters, community centers, childcare centers, health clinics, and migrant camps. The RIF has three programs Books for ownership, Care to Read, and Family of Readers. 

The books for ownership involve the communities, supplying partial funding to buy books for disadvantaged children.  This is usually 25% for programs qualifying for the federal funding (Reading is Fundamental Inc.).  Volunteers buy the books and plan distribution process.  The children are given the opportunity to choose their own books.  This program is vital for children who have no books in their homes, who have limited access to libraries and bookstores.

The care to read program helps childhood professionals support children’s literacy.  The workshops in this program are based on early literacy and best researched practices.  The workshop programs provide training and information for building partnerships with families and using the best techniques.  They also enforce a “Train the Trainer” model that teaches participants to train their colleagues. 

The family of readers program is designed for parents.  It helps them take leadership in their child's reading and literacy.  These works shops are for parents teaching them how to select children’s books and read them out loud.  The workshops even teach them to plan community events of promoting literacy.  This program targets at risk families in elementary schools.

The NCBDI and RIF together are developing a nation of readers become productive people who help create strong communities.   These organizations are bringing awareness to the problems concerning literacy in low income families and taking steps to make positive changes for children and families.  I was unaware of the enormity of the challenges of literacy in the United States.  According to RIF, experts estimate that nearly 40 percent of U.S. 4th graders do not achieve basic levels of reading proficiency (Reading is Fundamental Inc.). The number is higher among low-income families, minority groups, and English language learners.  I felt this information relates to our discussion this week, which examined the challenges faced by low income and immigrant families providing quality early education to their children.  The challenge of access to such programs becomes difficult for families of these backgrounds.  NCBDI and RIF are helping local communities bridge the gaps of access, awareness, and understanding to families in need of literacy support.