Diversity

It's funny... Growing up overseas, you would think diversity would be a huge part of my life, and in some ways it is. I am used to having people of different races and cultures around me, and, quite honestly, I barely notice what color someone's skin is. But the thing is that at RFIS we kind of had our own culture. It was a melting pot of all of these different cultures, so while we were diverse in the different cultures that were represented, in a lot of ways it was as if we were only one culture. That's why they call us third culture kids, because we have our own little culture in the midst of the two cultures that we are each representing. So in a lot of ways I've dealt with diversity less than a lot of people here who have only come in contact with a few people of a different culture. I've used to us just all being the same culture, so sometimes I think I can be insensitive to people as a culture because I do not think about the fact that they really do have a different culture than I do. I don't judge people on their race. Instead I almost go to the opposite extreme and just ignore their race, which really can be just as bad if you think about it because I'm not really respecting their culture then. It's not that I don't like different cultures, I'm just ignorant of the differences a lot of times... Though I will say this, maybe I'm racist because I almost feel MORE comfortable sometimes hanging out with the international students, especially the Africans and Koreans because they're what I'm most used to. I love different cultures, but sometimes I'm quite ignorant to the racism that is here, or the fact that other races are disadvantaged, so I can see people getting frusturated with me.