At dinner a couple of nights ago, my parents asked numerous questions about my classes from the past semester and what important lessons I learned. This conversation occurred right after I completed the eight hour drive to Minnesota, and thus I provided them with superficial answers to the questions because I felt far more concerned about taking a nap. After several hours of sleep, I reconsidered their questions and realized that this Psychology of Racism course really changed a lot of my perspectives and thought processes. I noticed in the past couple of days that I started to notice race and racism displayed all around me, all the time. Advertisements on television, the cast of a particular movie, comments made by a friend, magazine articles – the list goes on and on, but I find it remarkable how ubiquitous this topic is in our society. I remember on the first day of class when everyone discussed how race impacted their lives, I felt nervous and apprehensive when it came my turn to talk because I literally had no concept of how racism influences my life. Even though I realize that as a White female raised in a predominantly White community I experienced the privilege of “being part of the racial norm” and took this “for granted without conscious consideration of their White privilege,” it remains astounding to me that I remained largely oblivious to this issue until my junior year of college (Tatum, 95).

In addition to providing me with a revolutionized view on how systematic racism (or any ism for that matter) functions in society, this course also prepared me well for helping to combat these cycles of oppression. Since high school, one of my biggest pet peeves occurs when someone uses “gay” or “retarded” to describe an object that clearly has no sexual orientation or learning disability. From high school to sophomore year of college I felt comfortable asking close friends to refrain from uses such phrases, but I never felt confident enough to confront an acquaintance with the issue. Since this course however, I found that I often feel self-assured enough to ask even acquaintances to refrain from utilizing these phrases around me. This new-found assertiveness extends beyond asking others to not use gay/retarded to racial slurs and jokes as well. I believe this ability comes from the knowledge of how cyclical isms continue to rotate unless confronted, and that challenging the status quo might “inspire real and lasting change” (Ayvazian, 600). So I guess in answer to my parents questions, I really learned a great deal of important lessons this semester.