New beginnings

I went to the Christian group meeting this Thursday and it was great. The group is called New Beginnings and is full of many different people. I met Black, White, Indian, and there was even one Chinese girl at the meeting. We all introduced ourselves and it was amazing how similar some of our journeys were. Many of the students in the group felt out of place on campus. Most of the people in the group found themselves in a very different place from the homes they had grown up. They all sought the strength of God to get them through their struggles. My dad would say that all black people were Muslim, but this group was predominately Black. They all read the bible very well, and believed in the lord with all of their hearts. I am realizing that my dad and his brothers were wrong about Black people. These Black people were good people in my opinion, and they all were going to college studying different majors. I cant believe that my father is so racist. I am glad my mom always tried to tell us different. I am glad that I am meeting so many different types of people. I am starting to appreciate going to a university filled with so much diversity. I even like my Indian professor now. I can understand most of what he is saying now. He even took some extra time after class to talk about some of the frustrations he noticed me having. I am doing so much better in his class now. I think I am at about a B+ for a grade now. That's not bad! I am shooting for the A still. I finally got up the nerve to tell my dad about my Black roommate, and just as I expected he got upset. I told him not to worry about anything and that my roommate was cool, but he yelled some really nasty things about Blacks over the phone. He said he is upset that I didn't tell him much earlier. He said he would have had housing change my roommate immediately. I told him that my roommate was just fine and that he has been a good influence on me. He called me stupid for not telling him sooner. I cant believe he called me stupid. Now I am really upset with my dad for the first time in my life. How could he feel this way about my friend. A friend who gave me the cloths and shoes off of his back. The guy who led me to this great Christian group where I am free to praise the lord how I please. Dad said I am stupid, but I think his prejudice is really stupid.  This fallout came at a really bad time because I need to ask my dad for more money. I need him to wire me more cash to pay for a group project that my classmates expect me to buy the supplies for. Plus, it is very expensive living in the big city. I know what I will do! I will ask my mother to ask him for me because I really don't want to talk to him. This makes me sad because I love my dad, and we never had a disagreement before. I always went along with whatever he wanted. I hope we can get past this. I will keep you posted!

Diversity is defined by Koomvies, Woodward and Associates (2003) as  "a structure that includes the tangible presence of individuals representing a variety of different attributes and characteristics, including culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other physical and social variables." The subject here is facing diversity in a very real way. He is even learning to accept the differences and the similarities he has with people from different ethnicity as he.

I believe that the subject of this blog could be in the second stage of Pedersen's Multicultural Development model (Koomvies, Woodward and Associates, 2003). Pedersen's second stage is Knowledge and reads as follows: "At this stage and individual acquires information or comprehension of different cultures and cultural beliefs. This represents the integration of cognition and beliefs (p 429)."