1. Normative Narratives 

I found two similar normative narratives with the same topic as mine. In Cheryl’s post, Madison’s post and my post, we both talk about the earliest memory of noticing that other people have different colour skin than we. There are two things that I found are the same in these three posts. The first one is kids meet the first people of different races and notice the “differences”. The earliest memory may not be the first time, but the memory is the beginning for us to get known of races. The second thing is that kids are curious, but not in disrespectful way.

In my story, the first time for me to see a person with different colour skin is in grade four. He was our foreign teacher, and he was white. As I compared his skin with our yellow skin ,I noticed that his colour of skin is whiter. That is because he is different from us. In Cheryl’s post, she saw the black kid in her first day of grade three. She compared with classmates as wall, “I see the new boy in our class and notice that he has darker skin than the rest of the kids in my class.” She knows that kid was different from her. In Madison’s post, she also knows the difference, “ My mom has braided my hair before, and it doesn’t look like this. Her clothes are different from mine too. She isn’t wearing leggings and a sweater like me.” and “Her skin is different too. It is very dark.”. Three of us write the differences that we found at the first look, and just from looking we can notice the race diversity. Also, Cheryl says, “He has moved here from a country very far away.”, Madison says, “Nahla tells us that she has moved here from Nigeria.”, and my teacher was from US. People would say that people who have different colour skin are from different places. That is not correct.

In our stories, we are all curious. In my memory, I was curious about whether my teacher ever bask in the sun and whether I can be so white. For Cheryl, she say, “I am very curious hear his name and what he did this summer.”. and for Madison, she was curious about Nahla’s hair, clothes and skin. The things that we curious are the things that we thought about at first with no offence. We do not have the thought of racism. I had no idea about racism because I lived in China. In China, the majority is people have yellow skin, and had few people from different races. I see nothing is related to racism though Cheryl’s and Madison’s posts. There is no problem for kids to be curious when they first meet a person from other races without offence.

2. Creating counter-stories: Disrupting normative narratives

In Sierra’s post, she saw the difference, but she was scared. She explains that “ because I had never seen someone who was not like me, (there was no range of diversity in my school because it was so small).” It is different from Cheryl, Madison and me, but not weird. It could be frightened by the panic caused by confusion.

The thing that catch me is that she says, “All my friends told me that their parents told them never to talk to strangers and be careful of the ones that have different colour skin.” Why people need be careful with people who have different colour skin. For this situation, I think the environment could be one reason for Sierra to be scared at that time. And because of this, Sierra began to ask “Why should I stay away from people who are different than me?”. That is quite different from the question that Cheryl, Madison and me wondered. This shows that white people are alert to people of other skin colour, and people of other skin colors are excluded by white people. As Johnson&Shapiro say in book, “Whites are the racial group that lives the most racially segregated lives”(2003, p.132). For racist, they put themselves on the top and separate from other races. These racist ideas are passed down from colonial era through generations, but it will change, or it is changing.

Cited: 

Sensoy, Ö, & DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press

When I was a kid, I did not have a lot of clips about my own gender. I do not know how everyone recognizes their gender, but I determined through my classmates and parents.

I don’t remember now if my parents told me about my gender as soon as I was born. All the memories I remember about gender cognition happened in my elementary school. I don’t remember if I knew my gender at the time, but I remember I played well with the boys. In kindergarten to elementary school, I am relatively active in the class, I will participate in activities for boys and girls. So at that time, I didn’t have much concept of gender cognition, I just felt that everyone was the same. When I was a kid, I was very athletic, so I had a close relationship with the boys. During the lessons, I often play on the playground with the boys, such as running and long jumps. I also have great strength. Drinking fountains in elementary schools need to be changed. Because of the heavy weight, the teachers made the boys change, but I can do the same, so I think boys and girls are no different.

Until one day, I went to the playground with the girls in the class, and things changed. We had half an hour of free time when I walked to the playground with the three girls. On the way to the playground, several boys saw me and invited me to play football with them. I agreed happily and told the girls that I would go to them in a while. Something strange happened. When I returned to find girls to play, I was rejected by them. They said that I was close to the boy, and I was just like the boy. They didn’t even want to walk with me. This makes me wonder why I cannot go with girls when I am good with boys. However, girls did not want to be with me, neither some boys. They won’t invite me to play sports with them, and ignored me for sometimes.

I was so upset about my situation. I became lonely. When I got home, I asked my parents, and they told me that girls and boys are different. Because I am a girl, in order to avoid a lot of problems, girls should keep a proper distance from boys. They don’t think that boys and I are good at sports, but girls should be more elegant. After that, I started trying to be ladylike. I don’t like wearing it because of the inconvenience of sports, but I started wearing skirts and started to keep a distance from the boys. Afterwards, I found that the boys are very energetic, and they can easily pick up the girls and not move. I started to understand the difference between genders. I understand the differences, but I don’t understand why they cause discrimination. Because many can be changed the day after tomorrow, such as speed or strength.

In China, my family is near the middle class, not very rich. I did not know much about cosmetics and luxury products before high school. Although I did not buy them often, an experience after high school made me feel that people have very different attitudes towards different classes. I also know that this phenomenon is very common.

I remember when I was in the 10th grade, my friends led me to pay attention to makeup and my dress. It is just to understand these in the beginning, and then to prepare these materials. The experience of buying materials fully reflects everyone’s class status. Since I was buying cosmetics for the first time, I found my friend to accompany me. When I first went in, there were not many people in the store. The shopping guide just glanced at us and then followed us. During our purchase process, there was very little communication, and the shopping guide did not recommend it as enthusiastically as other people said, for example, when we saw something, someone would recommend it with that thing. When we asked some questions, she also simply answered, such as whether there is inventory, or whether it is suitable for me. However, I liked that kind of situation, not too much or less. I think that situation is comfortable for me.

Later, there was a woman came who seems to be like a wealthy class. Although I didn’t see her wealth at that time, my friend told me that her clothes and pants were expensive. And that person was followed by two shopping guides. Although they were not as exaggerated as in the movie, their enthusiasm was real. Even in the end the lady bought only two goods, but the cashier carefully packaged and decorated each one. I did not know that whether the woman asked or the cashier chose to, but their attitude was different. Compared to that woman, those who looked like working-class people later did not have the shopping guide. I had a shopping guide to ask, but they had to find the shopping guides for helping. It was not a big difference, but it was about the attitude. For this experience, I found that it is easy for people to know their social status by looking the attitude of the shopping guides. Also, for some store, not only for the store that I went, they would not even let people in if their clothes is not clean.

I did not envy the service of the woman, and I felt a little stressed about that, but I did not like the way they treat working-class and poor people. This was the first time that I feel that differences in social status affect people in all aspects of life. I know that this kind of phenomenon appears in many different way and different place.

In my earliest memory, the first time that I realized people have different skin is in my primary school. Our school will let a foreign teacher to teach us as soon as we get into grade four, in order to give us a chance to practice our oral English. My teacher was a man who was from America. He was really friendly and humorous. I forgot his name now, but he was the first person who came from other country and have different color of skin.

When I was in grade four, foreign teachers were rare in many school. Fortunately, our school have one. When we were having the first class with him, I did not discover that he have the different color of skin than us at first. I just noticed that his features are deeper than us, such as his eyes. Then, after the class, he was playing with classmate. At that time, with the contrast, I realized he was much whiter than us. His skin was so white that I wondered whether he ever bask in the sun? Sometimes, I just stood behind him, and compared my skin with him. After a few weeks, I saw him do exercise with us under the sun. I did a contrast again. He did not have any color change on his skin.

In my memory, in China, many girl wanted to have whiter skin than they used to be. They thought white skin is more beautiful, and I might think so as well when I was young. Therefore, after school, I came back home, and asked my mother about my teacher’s skin. I said, “Mom, why my teacher can be so white? Can I get whiter like him if I do not bask in the sun for a long time?” My mother laughed at me. She said, “No, you cannot become as white as your teacher does. His skin was born whiter than ours. There are many countries in the world, and this leads that there are many difference among those countries. We have many different languages and people. We are Chinese, our hair is black and our skin is yellow. Your teacher came from America, and his skin is white. Some people, for example in Africa, have black skin. We were born like this, and it indicates our race and country.” I cannot recall all the sentences that my mom said, but I remembered that my mom told me, although people have different colors of skin, but there is no differences in their inside.

At that time, I did not really know about the discrimination, especially the racial discrimination against black people. Therefore, I did not notice that the color of skin can be used to judge somebody or decide what kind of people’s life they can have. However, I know about this, and I know why my mom said like that. She told me that she met some white and black people when I was 1 years old, and she said that they were really nice and really like me.

I am not a Canadian, so I do not have a home here, and I am living with my friend Alex in the university. However, the place that makes me home was the dormitory of my friend Jessie in Vancouver, and I am not quit sure about whether I was being like Canadian or not, but we were just being normal as a Chinese. I went and stayed in Vancouver during the Christmas holiday.

In weekends, I woke up at about 10:45 in the morning. I was just simply playing my phone on my bed. I turned on my music and began to getting up from bed. While I was getting dressed, I heard Alex was waking up with my music as usual (we are classmate since high school). Just after I brushed my teeth and washed my face, she was walking into the washroom. We looked at each other and I laughed at her messy look. While she began to brushing her teeth, I said, “I’m going to make breakfast. Come out and eat after you wash.” I just made two egg sandwiches, and two cups of milk. That was our brunch. We talked about some interesting things that happened in Canada, both in Regina and Vancouver, when we sat down.

At about 11:00, when we almost finished eating our brunch, Jessie and her boyfriend Charlie came. They just came back from atelier. They put down their bags, their umbrella and lay on the couch. I asked how was the class in the atelier. Charlie told me about the class, and they began to complain the weather. After they finished the complain of the weather, I changed the topic to talking about where we go and eat, or what to play. Alex said we have some food materials in the fridge. Jessie jokingly said, “When cooking at home, only Alex and Charlie can make it. You guys can make a Chinese food combining southern and northern China. Berney(that’s me) and I just need to wait and eat.” Then, Jessie realized what she said. She pulled me to the computer and turned on the computer games. At the same time, I heard that Alex and Charlie were discussing about what to cook. However, Jessie and I did not have time to complete a game. When we just started, Alex shouted, “Berney, come here and wash the cabbage.”

“Why Charlie cannot do that?”, I said it aloud.

“He is cutting the pork!”

Then, I went to the kitchen and washed the cabbage. Then, I just sat down again about 30 seconds, Charlie’ s voice came. “Jessie, steam rice!”,he said.

“Ah! No!”, Jessie complained and went to kitchen at last.

The game did not finish, but the meal began with the shout of Alex. She was shouting at Jessie, because Jessie carried the pork with her chopsticks from the kitchen to the table, and the oil dropped down along the way. Charlie and I were setting the table. I was laughing and seeing at them.