This was the first thing I thought of when I walked into Reisner's almost legendary Multiethnic Reporting class a couple of weeks ago.
Warning! It's a show tune. Extremely cheesy.
Now obviously, this is a song which is sung by puppets, and the entire show is equally as politically incorrect (and hilarious), but I think the song is actually very true. The truth is, everyone is a little bit racist, and until we get over that reality, we can never truly embrace and accept other cultures for who they are and where they came from.
I was born and raised in Miami, so I guess that should make me a little more tolerant of different cultures (and I definitely wouldn't consider myself a racist by any means). But I've realized that everyone, including myself, has their prejudices, and I think sometimes that living in a place such as Miami, your prejudices sometimes come out a little more than you like to admit.
I think, before this class, I would always be content with living within the unmarked boundaries of my life. I always lock my doors when I go into the "ghetto" neighborhoods and one night, I got lost in Overtown at night and almost went crazy thinking that the Big Bad Black Men were going to randomly shoot me. I have a vivid imagination.
I haven't started doing my Listening Post yet, but I know I'm doing it somewhere in Liberty City because of my Print News Reporting class. I went there for the first time today, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade. And surprise! I'm alive, writing this. Big Bad Black Men don't really exist at noon. Everyone was so nice and friendly, and I didn't really feel threatened at all.
I'm really excited about this project and what it will do for me, both personally and as a journalist! It's important in this profession to have as little preconceived notions as possible, and to be able to step out of your comfort zone and get a different perspective on things is a great way to put that into practice.
