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Assignment 09

When I think of the word outsider, I think of something that doesn’t belong like a tomato in a fruit basket. Although it looks like a fruit and is shelved in the fruit section deep down its a vegetable, no matter how much the tomato looks or is placed like a fruit its a vegetable, an outsider. Much throughout my life I’ve lived in communities that were predominately made of a single race and it wasn’t mine, more often than not I would feel like I’m different walking through the streets or being in class. I recall one time I was walking home from school and a group of kids that were older than me walked by me saying a word in their language followed by a burst of laughter. I knew what the word meant but didn’t really understand what was really going on. The word they said meant Chinese, I didn’t really think much of it but as it began to occur more and more often with different kids and even by adults at times I began to understand that I wasn’t accepted to some extend for who I was, for being something I had no control in. I felt like I was different no just from the physical differences that stood us apart but on a deeper level, in a way I’m like a tomato in the supermarket being shelved next to all the fruits. In Patricia Hill-Collins’s, “Learning from the outsider within,” she talks about not letting what others think define who you are but rather allow yourself to define who you are, not to be succumbed by stereotypes or racial words. When I look at it today I can say that I will every now and then fall in line or be define by stereotypes, Collins believed that we should be rejecting them and let others judge us by the person we actually are.