Running head: RACE AND MY COMMUNITY 1

Race and My Community

Tiffany Nicole Cooper

University of Phoenix

ETH125

Barri Brown

June 04, 2010

 Race and My Community

I was born in North Richland Hills, Texas to a Caucasian mother and father. On my

fathers’ side, there is some German, Irish, and Cherokee Indian. On my mothers’ side there is

only Cherokee Indian and Caucasian. We moved to Granbury, Texas when I was about six

months old. Growing up in my family I saw my share of prejudice and racism due to some

family history that started with my paternal grandfather. He tried to make me hate other races

like he did, but since my brother is half African American, and he was really out casted from my

fathers’ side of the family because of it. I saw what it did to my brother, and because of that I

decided never to have an inter-racial relationship myself. I would not want to have my kids

picked on like Shawn was in my family. My father used to make Shawn ride in the back of the

truck just because he didn’t like anyone of other another race. Fortunately, I was able to

overcome my obstacles and come out with a better view of other races because of growing up

with my mother.

I now live in Burnet, Texas, which is really close to Austin, and it is a lot smaller than the

town I grew up in. Burnet is populating fast, however, due to the overpopulating in Austin.

People want to move to smaller towns but still live close to the city, so they move here. As the

years have gone by Burnet has grown, as well as its diversity, however, there are still many

barriers and problems with grouping and stereotyping. I think that people can overcome their

beliefs and can live with another race, like so many before have.

A majority of the people that live here in Burnet, Texas are Caucasian, like me;

approximately ninety-five percent based on the census conducted in 2010 (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2010). Yet, more and more residents of Texas, like most of the country, are of Hispanic

origin (Associated Press, 2003). It is often difficult to speak to people who speak another

language, in our case; Spanish. Even though the community benefits from their labor, there are a

number of disadvantages as well; not only for the Mexican- and Latino Americans, but for the

White citizens as well. Language barriers can be a major disadvantage for us.

In Burnet County alone, the percentage of Hispanic origins is 17.1%. The percentage of

African Americans is 0.7%, and the percentage of Caucasians is 95.6% (U.S. Census

Bureau, 2010). I feel that this is not the most accurate because it feels like there is way more

Hispanic people in the community then 17.1%, but they can only go off the answers that people

gave, and I imagine a good amount of people did not participate in the survey. According

to Wikipedia (2010), "[The census of 2000 revealed, there were 4,735 people, 1,661 households,

and 1,114 families residing in the city. The population density was 693.1 people per square mile

(267.7/km2). There were 1,813 housing units at an average density of 265.4/sq mi (102.5/km2).

The racial makeup of the city was 83.80% White, 5.32% African American, 1.20% Native

American, 0.49% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 7.77% from other races, and 1.37% from two or

more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race was 18.97% of the population.]” (para.5).

People Quick Facts Burnet County Texas

White persons, percent, 2008 (a) 95.6% 82.4%
Black persons, percent, 2008 (a) 2.2% 11.9%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons, percent, 2008 (a) 0.7% 0.8%
Asian persons, percent, 2008 (a) 0.5% 3.5%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, percent, 2008 (a) 0.1% 0.1%
Persons reporting two or more races, percent, 2008 1.0% 1.3%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2008 (b) 17.1% 36.5%
White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2008 79.0% 47.4%
In the table that I provided, above, it gives people a rough estimate of the races that live in my community. This
table was provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, 2010.
 When it comes to historical land spots or places, I found that Burnet is guilty of being

racist and naming one of our mountains using unethical terms. According to Wikipedia (2010),

“[Nigger Head Mountain” was so named because the forest atop it resembled a black man’s hair.

In 1966, the US First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, denounced the racist name, asking the U.S.

Board on Geographic Names and the U.S. Forest Service to rename it, becoming “Colored

Mountain” in 1968.]”

I have seen many leaders in my community come and go, there were some leaders that

helped the community and all the people and never paid attention to what color they were. I do

not feel that the leaders treat residents differently based upon race, but minorities may feel

differently, though resentment not evident. Now, when it comes to government offices like the

food stamp building that is a totally different story. From my Caucasian viewpoint, if I were to

request help from these offices for getting food stamps or Medicaid, it would come easier if you

are of any other race but white. I have gained personal experience from situations at the local

food stamp office. They did not say anything specifically because of my race, but my Hispanic

friend was with me and I walked in the door first, filled out all my paperwork and was done

before she got up there. (She first had to go to another part of the building and do other errands,

first.) They told me I would have to wait at least fifteen days before I heard anything. When she

got there, she walked in; they helped her right then and there. Even my friend said she could not

believe they help her first since I have children and she doesn’t! As for the rest of our

qualifications; we have the same job, same age, she’s married to a man that makes 17.00/hour! I

do not have husband or extra income that I make. It is just my daughter and me. Because of

having to wait for food stamps help, I found a local church to be very helpful during this time
and soon learned that most of the churches congregation was part of the City Council somehow

or a well respected community member that shows leadership qualities. When visiting the

pantry, I saw that people of all races were there, just like I was. It kind of gave me a feeling of

closeness to people of other races because we were all in need of the same thing; we are broke

and hungry, needy families.

I have to say that I feel like members of my community treat people like me the same as

they treat everyone else. I used to I think that they treat people who are different the same way. I

have not personally ever seen anyone treated unfairly about anything due to their race, so for this

paper I talk to an Officer Cliff Linney and asked him about his thoughts on the subject. He

reminded me that of the newspaper article published two weeks ago stated that one of his officers

were suspended as of right now due to racial profiling when pulling people over. Apparently, this

officer was only pulling over Hispanic people to find out if they were illegal’s or not. It is a sad

thing to see people abusing their authorities like this.

When it comes to the manuals provided for the employees at my workplace, they do not

contain information by or about people like me. My work manuals contain information that is

completely in Spanish. Since the majority of our staff is speaks and understands English I do not

think this is very “business like”. I asked the manager why there were no manuals written in

English and she advised that “If a person that needs help can speak English, they can ask

somebody!” I recently quit this place due to the amount of racism, and sexism that was at this

job.

The local media represents people like me, about the same as they do people of

Mexican American or of any other Hispanic American descent. There are several radio stations
in the local area that are broadcasted in Spanish. There are also television shows that provide

entertainment or news in Spanish. Truth be told, I have cable, and there are tons of Spanish

channels, but when I asked a friend that lives in town, and has just basic television, she said they

have three Spanish speaking stations, and there are five English speaking stations. To me that

seems almost leveled out.

There are many similarities and differences between me and the people who are in

leadership positions in my community. There are many Caucasian people in the leadership roles

like; our County Commissioner, Chief of Police, several judges, and our Mayor. There are also

many people, who are not like me, and they hold roles in leadership, like Hispanic City Council

members, and several county seats belong to well-respected Hispanics. I do not feel that the

leaders treat residents differently based upon race, but minorities may feel differently, though

resentment is not apparent. It seems to me like the community members and I have a lot of the

same thought processing when it comes to dealings with the community.

If I could resolve any inequities within my community, the first thing I would do is to fix

the language barrier. As the old adage goes “Give a man a fish and he eats for one day, teach a

man to fish and he eats forever.” So I think how to solve this is Spanish speaking residents

should be forced to take English courses and have some understanding of the language. If the

community forced English on its minority groups, Spanish-speaking, and even forced Spanish on

only English speakers, parents could pass the language on to their children and soon, in an ideal

world, the population would evolve to that where everyone is bi-lingual or tri-lingual, etc.. I

would change this by going door to door, if I had to, to find out with residents have language

barriers in them or not. Gathering all the information I would figure out how to schedule the

different classes for different nights. I would only really have to have two teachers; one for
English, one for Spanish.

The second thing I would do is I would have a community park day for the children and

parents in the community so that people could interact more with different races and get to know

each other better so that it may relief some racial tension in the community. I would do this by

first printing out flyers announcing the date and time of the “Bring your Community Together

Day”. I would go door to door passing out flyers. I would also post a flyer up at the Library and

any other place that would allow me to hang the flyers up. I would try to announce on the local

radios and in the local newspapers. I think having a community get together would really help

our community grow stronger bonds as a whole. If we get to know each other better, then we

would be less likely to judge each other using racial profiling.

In conclusion, I feel that we could all benefit in our society from each other. We have to

share this space for a long time, so the sooner we learn to live together, the better it would be for

our generations and the many future generations yet to come. Burnet is no longer racist and you

can see that in the way we treat other people of different origins. It has taken our town years of

growing up to do, but I think before it is over it we will all seem like we are all just one, big,

happy family!