Friday, June 28, 2013

Seletha Head Tucker

Shared publicly  -  Jun 24, 2013
Blog: Welcoming Families From Around the World

My country of choice for the family is Cambodia and I will use a healthcare setting or hospital for my place of employment.  I would begin by researching the country itself along with the history, languages of that country. I would then try to find out as much information about the family.  Is there any history of the family in this country before?  Is there a chance the children or members of the family have attended school in this country.  If not, I would begin to call the different schools in that area that can give me any information on how I would be able to speak with these people in case they do not speak my language. I would also try to find out if there were things I could do to make them feel comfortable in our country.  I would work on the things that I would say to them and how I would address them.  If the male is the head of the household and the spokesperson for the family, I would begin speaking with him and allow him to answer questions until he permitted me to do otherwise. I think going back to look over my notes and my assignments on ethnicity would also better prepare me to do the job to the best of my ability.
By doing these things, I allow myself a chance to be more calm about meeting people from another country and would feel better about communicating with them. This would also put the family more at ease, knowing that I took the time to research information about them and their culture.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Blog: Professional Hopes and Goals

I have truly enjoyed this class about diversity and my hope is that I become the teacher all children will be able to come to when they are having trouble and believe I want the best for them. I want them to know that I care about them and their families and my only desire is that they succeed.

My goal is to educate as many children as possible and give them a burning desire to learn all they can possibly learn and to realize the sky is the limit.

I would like to thank my instructor, Professor Tuthill, and my colleagues for making this such as enjoyable class and for allowing me to be a part of their lives for this brief period. I wish them all the best of luck in the future. I am positive all of them will be an asset to any teaching environment they come in contact with. God Bless.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Blog: The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

I remember watching the movie "Glory Road" with my daughter. The movie is about the first black college basketball players to play on a white team and all the prejudices they endured while being on the team. It was awesome the way the coach stuck up for the kids and encouraged the kids to be their best in spite of adversity. They had to endure not being able to sleep in the same hotel rooms and not being able to participate in ceremonies for the players because of their race. 

So many things really hurt to see these young men being beaten in bathrooms simply because they played on the white college basketball team. Hearing all of the racial slurs and the constant condescending remarks and belittling really allowed me to see how ugly racism really is. They simply wanted to get an education and be able to play a sport they loved and they were good at it.  It did bring up other incidences in my own life when we lived in Seattle and my son got into a fight because of being called the "N"word. He was in elementary school.  This was ten years ago.  We were also called out of our names because we lived in the Suburbs of the State of Washington.

This hurt but I realized that those people are not all people and do not express the thoughts of everyone. I have never treated anybody differently because they were not the same race.  I believe in order for the world to change, we have to change one by one, seeing the good in people and accepting them for who they are not for what color they are.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions

Blog: Practicing Awareness of Microaggressions




One example I had this week of microaggression was when I made a comment in a meeting and my boss repeated what I said and said you have to do the head and neck rolling to know exactly what I said. Meaning, black women make comments the expressions of rolling there eyes , head and neck in an attitudinal method. I have noticed this before with another black female at the job and was very much offended by this. Realizing the type of person she is after working there for almost a year, I was not as offended this time as I was the first time she did it with a coworker.  I believe she is quite aware of what she is doing but feels we don’t realize it.  It is hurtful to see that people in this day in time still harbor prejudices against other races.

This week has enlightened me on microaggresssions and I have really been more aware and more cautious of the things I allow to come out of my mouth.  I don’t want to offend anybody in any way and want to always be aware of how words can hurt.  I also have noticed things that have probably been said around me all along that are microaggressions.  I now realize what they are and have brought these things to the attention of others.