Everyone who reads this please give me some feedback. Thank you.
Ok, so I've been having a pretty crummy week so far and this just took it from crummy to crappy. Here's what happened...
As you all know, I am in a speech class. Well, in todays class we had an activity that we had to do. We had to gather analysis of our audience, and by doing so we had to get up and move around the room and talk to everyone recording such information such as age, gender, religion, ethnic backround, hobbies, education, occupation, ect. So after I gathered the information I needed from my friends around me I ventured out into another group of individuals and recorded their information. As soon as I was done writing everything down, one of my classmates, who is extremely outspoken and opinionated sits down at the group I am already at. Just so you know he claims himself to be of "east african" heritage. He takes the appearance of a hindi man with dark brown skin. He is not african american in any way. so I turned to him and said "how are you?" in a very happy cheerful voice. He responded back nicely and I proceeded to interview him. When I got to the gender portion of the analysis, I wanted to lighten the mood to this assignment that we had to do and jokingly asked him "gender?".. obvious to me he was male. He stopped what he was doing, got really serious and quite for a couple of seconds and says to me with discust, "white people". I looked at him in bewilderment and told him "I was just kidding!" I was almost in tears because I have never been so offended before! He had no right to insult me that way on account of 1. He does not know me 2. He was overgeneralizing and sterotyping white people 3. The fact that I was white and the fact that I was making a joke had no correlation to each other and 4. The teacher keeps telling the class over and over do NOT be racist in anyway in the class and when you are giving your speech because you may choose a topic that offends some people (he does this after the fact she just went over this) so be openminded of others. I was so outraged, but did not say anything back to him. I just looked down and tried to hide my face that was about to burst into tears. I wasn't sure what I should do. I was comtemplating mentioning this to the professor, but I didn't want to sound like a tattle- tell. I told my sister what happened and she said that that was harrassment and to file a report on campus. I don't think I want to go that far, but I'm just looking for some comments from you guys on what happened today and what I should do. Thank You.
As you all know, I am in a speech class. Well, in todays class we had an activity that we had to do. We had to gather analysis of our audience, and by doing so we had to get up and move around the room and talk to everyone recording such information such as age, gender, religion, ethnic backround, hobbies, education, occupation, ect. So after I gathered the information I needed from my friends around me I ventured out into another group of individuals and recorded their information. As soon as I was done writing everything down, one of my classmates, who is extremely outspoken and opinionated sits down at the group I am already at. Just so you know he claims himself to be of "east african" heritage. He takes the appearance of a hindi man with dark brown skin. He is not african american in any way. so I turned to him and said "how are you?" in a very happy cheerful voice. He responded back nicely and I proceeded to interview him. When I got to the gender portion of the analysis, I wanted to lighten the mood to this assignment that we had to do and jokingly asked him "gender?".. obvious to me he was male. He stopped what he was doing, got really serious and quite for a couple of seconds and says to me with discust, "white people". I looked at him in bewilderment and told him "I was just kidding!" I was almost in tears because I have never been so offended before! He had no right to insult me that way on account of 1. He does not know me 2. He was overgeneralizing and sterotyping white people 3. The fact that I was white and the fact that I was making a joke had no correlation to each other and 4. The teacher keeps telling the class over and over do NOT be racist in anyway in the class and when you are giving your speech because you may choose a topic that offends some people (he does this after the fact she just went over this) so be openminded of others. I was so outraged, but did not say anything back to him. I just looked down and tried to hide my face that was about to burst into tears. I wasn't sure what I should do. I was comtemplating mentioning this to the professor, but I didn't want to sound like a tattle- tell. I told my sister what happened and she said that that was harrassment and to file a report on campus. I don't think I want to go that far, but I'm just looking for some comments from you guys on what happened today and what I should do. Thank You.