kaleb breton

5/5/16

Courageous Conversations

In the U.S. people of color are around 14 percent more likely to be in poverty that
Caucasians and Asians. Inequality is one of the most heated topics in the U.S. right
now. But, for most people its a subject that many choose not to participate in. So in this
project we set out not only to talk about this issue, but also to find out why people dont
want to talk about it. What I found for the conversations that we had both in class and
outside of school, was the fear of offending someone.
This whole debate stems back to not only the times when segregation were
common practise, but to right after the civil war. At this time many slaves were now free
but they didnt own land, they werent literate and this caused a snowball effect that has
kept certain races from having certain things like better schooling, which has cause a
multitude of problems that continue to this day such as lower salaries and higher, high
school dropout rates for many people of color.
The reason I saw, in class why people felt awkward discussing this topics was
quite simple. Firstly, many of the white students felt awkward when in the first part of the
project we talked about privilege, more specifically white privilege. When being told that
because of their race they were treated better than most other races and that its an
unfair advantage. Causing some students including myself to get this feeling of being
the bad guy, this caused them to not talk in this debate because they felt what has

been called white guilt. This was only furthered when we took IET tests. These tests
would tell us if we had any preferences to any race, for most students they got a slight
to moderate prefrance to Caucasian people. Secondly, at our school there has and will
continue to be a group of people who share the same view about this topic. This group
dominates the school in the number of people who feel the same way. So when
discussing a point that opposes that group's own view, my fellow classmates and I were
at a severe disadvantage. For example, in class we read a paper on the different white
privileges from 1988 and compare it to if we thought they still applied today. Most of the
students talked about how they thought how most of the different privileges still do exist.
But when I came to debate that fairly few still do, I noticed something in the class. It was
a subtle shift in interest, eyes were less focused on me than others people when they
talked, and the point I brought up wasnt really talked about after. That is what many
others who share views with me feel in this debate, and because their views arent
listened to they just dont talk. Thirdly in class a few people didnt

want to talk

because they fear what they will be called. When discussing other topics, you cant
really be called anything that bad. If two people are discussing political views nothing
bad can happen to either person. How ever in this debate a person can be called racist
and sexist even if their view isnt. So, its also fear that causes people to not want to
speak up about their views.
Outside of our classroom there are even more reasons why many people were
reluctant to talk in this debate other than their opinions. The reason being, a clash of
Ideologies. It has come to my attention that a vast amount of the populus thinks that to
solve this problem you dont talk about it or pay attention topics deemed to be of racial

dispute, but instead look at them from a different angle than that. For these people,
talking about race is a clash of ideologies. So by participating in racial discussions they
only further the problem so they stay quite and dont talk. This ideology did not apply to
the people that my partner and I interviewed. Firstly we interviewed an charming elderly
lady at a nearby retirement community. We found that even though she had grown up in
mid west in a predominantly white town and community, she knew what being in the
non-dominant culture felt like. While talking to her, she relayed her journeys living
across the globe in a multitude of locations and always she was the odd one out. This
gave her a very unbiased view as living in both situations obviously taught her a lot. Her
message was that now people are using race as a way to be noticed and that most of
the time the real problems were unrelated to race at all.
This was not just her view how ever. We also interviewed a group of college
student all who were either latino, middle eastern, or a mix of both. They all
unanimously agreed that media was blowing everything out of proportion or even
creating racial problems were it wasnt. There was however in both interviews a
reluctancy towards the beginning of the interview to answer certain questioned. My
partner and I found that towards the beginning of the interview, the soft questions like:
What race are your parents?, and what was the ethnic makeup of your neighborhood
where you grew up? Those question were answered with relative speed and ease. How
ever, when moving on to the questions such as. When was the first time you really saw
race?, and do you believe in white privilege? Those questions took a bit of coaxing,
more for the college student than the elderly lady, to get solid honest answers . This
showed me a lot about how even when discussing this topic with people who know and

are prepared for the questions certain social topics are in general awkward to discuss
with people you dont know.
Given the time, the questioning got easier as they became more acquainted to
the questions, and us as people. I believe it was because of my own race that may have
the biggest impact on that outcome. Being white I think for the college student that
made them uncomfortable, that I was talking about privileges that socially I have over
them, I think for a multitude of reasons. Firstly they may have been surprised by the fact
that I was so openly talking about the subjects as the questions were direct and to the
point, which may at first have been so unsettling to jump straight in. The reason I think
that primarily both the college students and the elderly lady were reluctant to answer
was, that they didnt know what my views on the topic were. I think that they didnt know
whether I believed that white privilege existed or didnt exist. That may have caused
them to question whether I would be offended or not by their answers, and how I could
have reacted. Or depending on what I believed, how hostile the encounter could have
become looking at how some people reacted when talking about race.
No matter, what view a person has, this debate can cause their life to completely
changing, all due to the both people and the media misconstruing their Ideals. It is
evident that all people should be able to get their views across without the threat of
violence being directed towards them. This issue can not be solved if one group of
people are silent. Every problem and issue in society, especially this one needs to be
solved in the mid ground between all sides views, even if it wasnt what each side
completely agrees upon. It is something that will be acceptable for all people, and this
can only happen if all people are talking, sharing their thoughts so that one day we no

longer need to worry about inequalities and focus on other problem, so that we all can
prosper together.

Parent note:
What struck me most about Kalebs Courageous Conversation was that the college students,
being of a different ethnicity, were reluctant to answer the questions once they started to delve deeper into
the subject of white privilege. Was Kalebs theory correct? Did they not want to answer because Kaleb
was white and they werent sure where he stood on the subject? Were they possibly afraid they would
offend Kaleb instead of the other way around? Perhaps we wont know as Im sure Kaleb didnt ask that
of the students as he didnt want to offend them. I feel one of the biggest obstacles we all need to
overcome is the fear that we will offend each other. We cant ever make any real progress if we cant be
real.
I learned that this is one of the few times that Kaleb didnt speak up as much as he wanted to. It
saddens me that the conversation couldnt be more open and that all students didnt feel comfortable
expressing themselves for fear of being labeled.
I want to celebrate Kaleb in this writing and in his participation of the subject. I feel he
respectfully listened to others opinions and thoughts even when he felt he, himself, wasnt being heard.
That takes courage and a strong, inner self-control to do. My hope is that, moving forward, Kaleb feels
empowered to speak his opinion as he has lot of truly insightful things to say and I hope he gets the
respectful, listening he deserves.