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Assignment 9

There have been a few times in my life when I felt like an outsider. Fortunately it has not happened a lot, but when it does happen it can be extremely hard. I’ve had a learning disability my entire life and I have struggled with it for as long as I can remember. Growing up, for all my exams and quizzes from as early as elementary school, I had to leave the classroom and take it in a special location. I used to be so embarrassed by this because I just wanted to take the exam in my classroom with all my other peers. Having a disability has made me feel like an outsider and made me feel down about myself. It had me questioning myself, that I was not as smart as my friends because I would take me extra time to just finish one assignment. As I have grown older, and became more mature, I have accepted my learning disability because it made me who I am. Instead of being embarrassed by this, I learned to embrace it and not be ashamed of who I am. Correlating my feelings with Paticia Hill-Collin’s essay, “Learning from the Outsider Within” she talks about all different kinds of stereotypes and labels that people have and even give themselves. She discussed families within her essay who comes from all different types of backgrounds.  All of these families she talked about came from different backgrounds, yet they all had a time where they experienced what it felt like to be an outsiders.  Many people think that there is a certain path we as people are suppose to follow. Sometimes, thing’s do not always go as they are suppose too. Social media is a huge influence on our society today. People have this idea in there head on what they are suppose to look like because of the media. 99% of the people do not look like anything compared to what is shown on TV and magazines. This causes people to feel down about themselves and make them feel like an outsider because they believe they are not socially accepted.