Ivan’s Story

Growing up in a diverse neighborhood, with a diverse group of friends and having BI-POC family, I was fortunate to have exposure to different people and cultures. I find that more important as I get older. I unfortunately have been on the receiving end of negative actions by people of color and have witnessed hatred towards people of color. The influences I grew up with, luckily kept me from forming inaccurate generalizations of people different than me. However, it did create some apprehensiveness when I was younger. Throughout my life, I have always enjoyed learning about, getting to know, and connecting with people. The fact that we still have systems and ideas to look down and hold down people different than us, angers me. Besides the stories of racism told by my BI-POC cousins, the most influential lessons I ever learned about racism came from my friend, Walker. Walker was the janitor at my elementary school. I knew him from first grade and we still keep in touch. When I was in high school, I worked my summers with him as a janitor, readying the grade school for the following school year. Walker was an open book. Told me his stories about growing up during segregation, being belittled at his jobs and the significance of being called "boy." He allowed me to ask questions no matter how ignorant they seemed. As a white kid growing up in the 90's and 2000's, I'm sure there were many. My father passed away when I was 13. From that point on, there were several men in my life that I looked to, to guide me during that period's most important time of development. Walker, now in his 70's, was one the most influential men in my life and remains my friend to this day. He has always treated me like a son and I have grown protective of him, therefore RACE work to me is a little more personal. If I had learned anything from him, it was to always judge people off of their character and not color. I don't always agree with what is determined as racism today. But if I didn't keep an open mind to understand the other point of view, nor be a part of the change that WE ALL know needs to happen I would simply be disregarding everything Walker taught me and betraying my own character. Therefore, to understand people, you need to learn about them. In my field of work, I had never noticed the level of mistrust or discomfort that some members of the Somali community may have for us. It wasn't until I began learning how to speak Somali, that I saw a huge change in our interactions. My journey learning about Somalia and Somali people only reinforces the importance of our need to communicate with each other and hold respect for each other's backgrounds. I joined REAT to grow personally, professionally and to help fill the large cracks that exist within the structures of our society.
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