Essay Sample on International Relations in Society

Introduction

Am a Latino American living in Hawaii. I did my elementary studies in the same area and am currently undertaking my high school education in the nearby state. I belong to the Amerindians ethnic group. The American group that had the Ancestral lineage from Siberia.

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Prior Information About African American

Initially, the knowledge I had concerning African Americans was low and quite contradictory. The friends I had when I was young made me believe that African Americans was the least group among the American groups. This was due to how the group was associated with poverty, low living standards, immoral behaviors and high level of illiteracy (White & Wu, 2014). The books that I had read about the history of African American had influenced my attitude towards the group. Furthermore, there were various stereotypes which were developed about the group which also had affected my reasoning about the group. For instance, there was the Sambo stereotype which mostly endured in America history. Through this stereotype the African American were seen as docile, simple-minded and were associated with American colonialism; where they mainly served as slaves (Van, 2016).Additionally, the Mammy stereotype presented the African American woman as the one who had shinning white teeth and a pitch-black skin. It was also shown that the woman dearly loved her children and gave them advice. Overall, in the social media, the African American was mostly presented as a weak group which in most cases had no direction (Van, 2016).

First Time Experience With African Americans

My first time experience with African Americans was when I was in the sixth grade. This was the time I participated in the cultural dances that were organized by the school, and we happened to go up to the state level. Various students from different schools came to participate, and therefore the place was densely populated. After we did our presentation, we had the chance to watch other groups as they presented their dances. Among all individuals that I happened to watch, the dance performed by the African American students amused me.

Given that I had viewed that group as inferior people; whose level of thinking was shallow, my mindset changed (Van, 2016). In this case, even before the adjudicators could give the final results of the winning group; I had given credit to the outstanding dance performed by the African Americans students. The costumes that the group had worn were so creative signifying a high level of creativity. When the group finished acting, I remembered how I slowly found my way out to interact with them closely. I realized that they were so friendly and they could even speak better English than I did. I could not see anything that could have caused me not to love them (Soubelet, 2013). Surprisingly, one of them gave me a bracelet which I kept for long before I grew up.

Pathway to Change of Perception About African Americans and the Influencing Factors

The perception that I had concerning the African American group changed after my first experience with them. Every time I remembered how the group presented an outstanding performance and my interaction with the group; there is no way I could continue to despise them as mindset had triggered me to hold. As a result, I found myself engaging in research activities to learn and understand the African American group. During my study, I found out that the group was like any other group in America only that as history stated the group was somehow left behind as other groups progressed economically, socially and politically (Soubelet, 2013). Hence, the roads within where the group lived were poor, and it was hard for those who belonged to the group to hold political positions since the mindset of most people could not allow them to see any leadership qualities from these group.

Current Feelings About African American and the Ability to Interact With Them

Currently, I have a positive attitude about the African American group. First of all, I have been able to acknowledge the skin color of the group which distinguishes them from other cultural groups in America (White & Wu, 2014). Additionally, I learned that the group had a lot of elites who had contributed to the development of American history and others who were holding senior positions in the government. I have developed more interest in the group, and I have discovered that the group is like any other in any part of the world .This is because they were humans with all the common senses to qualify them to achieve even greater things if given an opportunity (White & Wu, 2014). African American is the group that I got so much attached to, and I always find it easier to learn more concerning it.

Advise to Be Shared With Young Self if Back to Those Times

It is my wish that those young self-days could come back again. This would be the time I would wish to clarify to my friends who had instilled negative thought in me concerning Africa American that this group was more potential than they could think. I would help them clear all the misconceptions they had concerning the group.

References

Soubelet, A. (2013). The role of social activity in age-cognition relations. Educational Gerontology, 39(8), 558-568.

Van Miltenburg, E. (2016). Stereotyping and bias in the flickr30k dataset. ArXiv preprint arXiv: 1605. 06083.

White, K. R., & Wu, Q. (2014). Application of the life course perspective in child welfare research. Children and Youth Services Review, 46, 146-154.