Childhood Stressors

Racism is one of the stressor I experienced as a child. I was eleven years old and my father was in the air force. We were stationed in England and we lived off the air force base in a village name Ipswich. I was able to go to school on the base by being transported by bus to the air force base but in the village we lived in was predominately Caucasians. Although, I was the only African American in the village I had no concept of racism at that time. I just looked at people as individuals not different races.

One day I was traveling to the town in the village with my Caucasian friend and I past this one house a little old lady came out side and yelled “Go back to Africa!” At that time I just ignored the lady and continue on my way to the town. But after a few more times of walking the same way to the town in the village I would hear her eve time telling me to go back to Africa. I spoke to my parents about the incident and they told me to let her know that I was not from Africa but Was American. Therefore when I went pass her house for the last time she came out and said it again “Go back to Africa” I responded, “ I can’t I am from America” Then the little old lady said “Go back to America, you little black girl!” After that I never walked that way to the town village again.

As a child I was able to cope with this behavior by my parents support and encouragement and they taught me to ignore people who do not realize that we all have the same blood color.

I chose United Kingdom to find resources on “Racism”. Through my investigation I ran into two articles on the Internet that spoke on how racism is so high in the United Kingdom. According to the article on “Education: Black Caribbean children held back by institutional racism in schools,” (Curtis, 2008) says that Black Caribbean students are encountering racism at a very high level to the point that children are not succeeding in school. This article tells a study that the racism is not so much as peer relationships but mainly the teachers who see the black children as behavior problems and that cannot do anything to help them. This is stated regardless of their ability to show what they know but just because they are black. The government is trying to establish laws that regulate the teaching staff to treat all children equally regardless of race, religion or creed. They have been studding the changes since 2003 and have found that providing educators that would like for all children to succeed has made an impact in the children academic scores and improved the behaviors in school but they feel there is still more work to do. (Curtis, 2008)

Resource:                                                                                                                                           

Curtis, P. (2008, September 5). Education: Black Caribbean children held back by institutional racism in schools, says study. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/05/raceineducation.raceinschools