I moved from
city to
suburb just before 5th
grade. I had never cared or even really noticed that the other kids I was playing with at school had different
colored skin than myself. Looking back, there were maybe 2 white kids in my
kindergarten class. Half of the time the teacher spoke
Spanish.
Moving to where I am now, I was surprised. There were basically no Asian kids, a few Mexicans, and I think one black boy in my elementary school. Now that I'm in high school, the statistics are about 77% white, 18% Mexican, and 3% "other". And yes, I realize these don't add up to 100%, so who even knows what the other 2% are if they aren't even in the other category.
It's amusing to me to have a conversation with a group of people who have only ever lived here about prejudice. They claim that they're not, yet all of their friends are white. They've never known what it's like to have been in the minority, as a white person.
When, while I was in 8th grade, a 7th grade boy came to our Middle School and was very openly gay, the group of 8th grade "popular" girls immediately embraced him. I guess they thought it was a new way for them to get attention, and it worked. All of their male counterparts were disgusted and stopped hanging around the girls for awhile. And they basically dropped him. There are some homosexuals and bisexuals at our high school, but not very many. I have to admit that in PE freshman year it was a little unnerving for me to change just a few lockers down from a bisexual girl during swim week. I got over it, but a lot of my friends didn't.
Personally, I am white in background but don't appear it because I get very tan. I've asked people what they thought I was before, and gotten a wide variety of answers, and hardly anyone guesses that I am German and Swedish. I guess that this is a positive sign, because when people think I'm something else, I've never noticed any odd or changed behavior.
I've seen it about religion here too. A good friend of mine was harassed for being Mormon by a group of boys who created an unofficial club called NoMo. While I may not agree with her religion, I couldn't believe that they thought they had the right to harass her about it.
Point being, I suppose, is that it's a shame that prejudice still exists the way that it does. I've been told that it's a lot worse outside of southern Cali, which I believe. It's not like there's one group doing the separating. Holding things like Latin Emmy's or Black Music Awards or whatever else are segregating them as different from others. If there were a White-Only Awards show all hell would break loose. While there have been improvements in past decades, there's still a ways to go before people don't have to mark an Ethnic group on a box when filling out a form.
A note in response to Geez: I wasn't saying that award shows like that aren't good for the people involved. Indeed they are inspiring for people not yet in the top ranks, and those who've succeeded. I also don't think they "hurt the feelings" of any other group. But they are a distinction that still exists.