Final Discussion

America is a country known for its opportunity for a better and more financially stable life. As an 18 year old woman who lives in America and was raised by a family of immigrants I have seen pros and cons of the country. However what I have realized is that my pros and cons may be different from somebody else's. I was born a white female and brought up in an upper middle class primarily white town. I have never witnessed poverty or financially unstable areas. I do not know what it is like to be on the other side of the fence. In our conversation in our final class, a classmate of mine made an important point that I have still not been able to get out of my head. "The police talk", this is something she brought up that I have heard of but have never had to experience or witness this. I never knew that parents actually had this talk with there children and to always keep your hands visible. This is all due to the color of my skin, and we are in the year 2022. Should we really be justifying people still on the color of their skin? Sadly, this skin color is still one of the first things that people notice about a person which is just plain sick.

Living in America, you get the privilege of living amongst different people who come from different cultures. We have heard and seen racism for as long as we have been alive. I personally find it so sad that I have peers who feel as if they do not belong due to their skin color. Another one of my classmates pointed out how gender is also something that divides one another. Women support women, yes I will always support women. I will not although support someone just because they are a women if I do not agree with them on whatever it may be, no I will not support them. This is one thing I do not agree with, that say you share similar features with the person such as skin color, gender, or culturaly they should not just receive your automatic vote and support. This is one thing that people in America seem to do a lot which I quite frankly do not agree with. 

We also touched upon ideas of inflation which is something that if affecting Americans daily. For the people wanting immigrate to the United States in the next year are going to struggle with balancing the costs it has to live in this country. Since I am a member of an immigrant family from Greece I will use Greece as an example. In Greece, they use the Euro as their currency which currently is basically equivalent to the U.S. Dollar. You would think that 5 dollars would be equivalent to 5 euros but it is really not. In Greece you would spend 2.50 Euros on a coffee, here in America we spend over $5 on a coffee from Starbucks. The lifestyle shock that greeks have when they come to this country is crazy. So with inflation now it will make it a lot harder for them to come to this country for a better life.

What we need to understand is that everyone is different. Whether it is from sexuality, gender, race or anything, not one person is the same. It is something that people need to come to terms with. In the discussion we had in class we made it all very clear that none of us will ever experience the same things as one another. This doesn't bother me one bit. I love the way I am, I will not wish to experience anything different. What I have and will experience in the future makes me the person that I am. 

Overall, I think that our discussion was informative and eye opening. Listening to different perspectives of the ideas of inflation, social norms, and racial issues really helped me see other sides. I know what I have witnessed in my everyday life, but I did not know what it was like for someone of another race to feel like in there every day life. I now know that my normal is not someone else's normal. I would like to thank Professor Dean Smith for allowing me to partake in such an informative conversation like this and for creating a comfortable environment for me to open up about my opinions to the class.