Shakeadra Hines
Eng. 1101
Peter Gareis
May 3, 2013

Floating In A Sea of Cocoa

When we think back to our childhood I can remember the days playing Simon Say’s or Slide Baby on the sidewalk in front of the house. I also remember the children I played with, all little brown girls and boys. Even though there would be the occasional marshmallow kid or burrito kid, but in the end I was always floating in a sea of cocoa. I was never fully exposed to diversity, I was just part of the sea flowing along ignorantly. As any person in the world could tell you, we have all had to fill out some type of form and fill in the “race” section. If you were to look at me the first and only race to come to most minds would be black or African-American. Even though we live in a world with many cultures, we are still only socializing, living, and marrying the people that closely resemble ourselves. Being born in Atlanta there are so many cultures to explore depending on where you go. Buford is the Hispanic portion of Atlanta Midtown is primarily Caucasians and Decatur is primarily Black with a few marshmallows floating around. Now that I am a adult I can look back on my realize that I was never exposed to other cultures until I became a college student. My mind had been clouded to the different cultures around the world, I thought that nothing could ever be better than Atlanta. When I left Atlanta to pursue higher education, the clouds lifted and I was exposed to many new things. I could be a total “uncle tom” and say the best thing about college is the education, but I have to be honest and say that the best thing I have gotten is the exposure to new people from all walks of life. The schools of my past have been filled with children that look talk and act like me, we enjoy R&B, hip-hop, and rap. College is the international world series. The first class of my college experience, I realized that I was now the lone drop of fudge in a bowl filled with vanilla. Through out life we have faced multiple acts of diversity, whether it be in our face or whispered behind our backs. Every where we look there is a divide between people. There is no greater divide than television. Blond hair and blue eyes is labeled “ditzy”. Black skin, rough around the edges, and speaks broken English makes you “ghetto”. Living in a house full of people, catholic religion, and wear big gowns makes you a “gypsy”. Like me people think they are diverse but have not thought about what it would be like to live in another person’s culture or ethnic group. We you go to Atlanta you think of it as a fondue pot, all melting together but you put your pieces of veggies or bread in separately never inter-mixing