Professional Documents
Culture Documents
University of Phoenix
ETH125
Barri Brown
I was born in North Richland Hills, Texas to a Caucasian mother and father. On my
fathers’ side, there is some German, Irish, and Cherokee Indian. On my mothers’ side there is
only Cherokee Indian and Caucasian. We moved to Granbury, Texas when I was about six
months old. Growing up in my family I saw my share of prejudice and racism due to some
family history that started with my paternal grandfather. He tried to make me hate other races
like he did, but since my brother is half African American, and he was really out casted from my
fathers’ side of the family because of it. I saw what it did to my brother, and because of that I
decided never to have an inter-racial relationship myself. I would not want to have my kids
picked on like Shawn was in my family. My father used to make Shawn ride in the back of the
truck just because he didn’t like anyone of other another race. Fortunately, I was able to
overcome my obstacles and come out with a better view of other races because of growing up
with my mother.
I now live in Burnet, Texas, which is really close to Austin, and it is a lot smaller than the
town I grew up in. Burnet is populating fast, however, due to the overpopulating in Austin.
People want to move to smaller towns but still live close to the city, so they move here. As the
years have gone by Burnet has grown, as well as its diversity, however, there are still many
barriers and problems with grouping and stereotyping. I think that people can overcome their
beliefs and can live with another race, like so many before have.
A majority of the people that live here in Burnet, Texas are Caucasian, like me;
approximately ninety-five percent based on the census conducted in 2010 (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2010). Yet, more and more residents of Texas, like most of the country, are of Hispanic
origin (Associated Press, 2003). It is often difficult to speak to people who speak another
language, in our case; Spanish. Even though the community benefits from their labor, there are a
number of disadvantages as well; not only for the Mexican- and Latino Americans, but for the
White citizens as well. Language barriers can be a major disadvantage for us.
In Burnet County alone, the percentage of Hispanic origins is 17.1%. The percentage of
African Americans is 0.7%, and the percentage of Caucasians is 95.6% (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2010). I feel that this is not the most accurate because it feels like there is way more
Hispanic people in the community then 17.1%, but they can only go off the answers that people
gave, and I imagine a good amount of people did not participate in the survey. According
to Wikipedia (2010), "[The census of 2000 revealed, there were 4,735 people, 1,661 households,
and 1,114 families residing in the city. The population density was 693.1 people per square mile
(267.7/km2). There were 1,813 housing units at an average density of 265.4/sq mi (102.5/km2).
The racial makeup of the city was 83.80% White, 5.32% African American, 1.20% Native
American, 0.49% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 7.77% from other races, and 1.37% from two or
more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race was 18.97% of the population.]” (para.5).
racist and naming one of our mountains using unethical terms. According to Wikipedia (2010),
“[Nigger Head Mountain” was so named because the forest atop it resembled a black man’s hair.
In 1966, the US First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, denounced the racist name, asking the U.S.
Board on Geographic Names and the U.S. Forest Service to rename it, becoming “Colored
Mountain” in 1968.]”
I have seen many leaders in my community come and go, there were some leaders that
helped the community and all the people and never paid attention to what color they were. I do
not feel that the leaders treat residents differently based upon race, but minorities may feel
differently, though resentment not evident. Now, when it comes to government offices like the
food stamp building that is a totally different story. From my Caucasian viewpoint, if I were to
request help from these offices for getting food stamps or Medicaid, it would come easier if you
are of any other race but white. I have gained personal experience from situations at the local
food stamp office. They did not say anything specifically because of my race, but my Hispanic
friend was with me and I walked in the door first, filled out all my paperwork and was done
before she got up there. (She first had to go to another part of the building and do other errands,
first.) They told me I would have to wait at least fifteen days before I heard anything. When she
got there, she walked in; they helped her right then and there. Even my friend said she could not
believe they help her first since I have children and she doesn’t! As for the rest of our
qualifications; we have the same job, same age, she’s married to a man that makes 17.00/hour! I
do not have husband or extra income that I make. It is just my daughter and me. Because of
having to wait for food stamps help, I found a local church to be very helpful during this time
and soon learned that most of the churches congregation was part of the City Council somehow
or a well respected community member that shows leadership qualities. When visiting the
pantry, I saw that people of all races were there, just like I was. It kind of gave me a feeling of
closeness to people of other races because we were all in need of the same thing; we are broke
I have to say that I feel like members of my community treat people like me the same as
they treat everyone else. I used to I think that they treat people who are different the same way. I
have not personally ever seen anyone treated unfairly about anything due to their race, so for this
paper I talk to an Officer Cliff Linney and asked him about his thoughts on the subject. He
reminded me that of the newspaper article published two weeks ago stated that one of his officers
were suspended as of right now due to racial profiling when pulling people over. Apparently, this
officer was only pulling over Hispanic people to find out if they were illegal’s or not. It is a sad
When it comes to the manuals provided for the employees at my workplace, they do not
contain information by or about people like me. My work manuals contain information that is
completely in Spanish. Since the majority of our staff is speaks and understands English I do not
think this is very “business like”. I asked the manager why there were no manuals written in
English and she advised that “If a person that needs help can speak English, they can ask
somebody!” I recently quit this place due to the amount of racism, and sexism that was at this
job.
The local media represents people like me, about the same as they do people of
Mexican American or of any other Hispanic American descent. There are several radio stations
in the local area that are broadcasted in Spanish. There are also television shows that provide
entertainment or news in Spanish. Truth be told, I have cable, and there are tons of Spanish
channels, but when I asked a friend that lives in town, and has just basic television, she said they
have three Spanish speaking stations, and there are five English speaking stations. To me that
There are many similarities and differences between me and the people who are in
leadership positions in my community. There are many Caucasian people in the leadership roles
like; our County Commissioner, Chief of Police, several judges, and our Mayor. There are also
many people, who are not like me, and they hold roles in leadership, like Hispanic City Council
members, and several county seats belong to well-respected Hispanics. I do not feel that the
leaders treat residents differently based upon race, but minorities may feel differently, though
resentment is not apparent. It seems to me like the community members and I have a lot of the
If I could resolve any inequities within my community, the first thing I would do is to fix
the language barrier. As the old adage goes “Give a man a fish and he eats for one day, teach a
man to fish and he eats forever.” So I think how to solve this is Spanish speaking residents
should be forced to take English courses and have some understanding of the language. If the
community forced English on its minority groups, Spanish-speaking, and even forced Spanish on
only English speakers, parents could pass the language on to their children and soon, in an ideal
world, the population would evolve to that where everyone is bi-lingual or tri-lingual, etc.. I
would change this by going door to door, if I had to, to find out with residents have language
barriers in them or not. Gathering all the information I would figure out how to schedule the
different classes for different nights. I would only really have to have two teachers; one for
English, one for Spanish.
The second thing I would do is I would have a community park day for the children and
parents in the community so that people could interact more with different races and get to know
each other better so that it may relief some racial tension in the community. I would do this by
first printing out flyers announcing the date and time of the “Bring your Community Together
Day”. I would go door to door passing out flyers. I would also post a flyer up at the Library and
any other place that would allow me to hang the flyers up. I would try to announce on the local
radios and in the local newspapers. I think having a community get together would really help
our community grow stronger bonds as a whole. If we get to know each other better, then we
In conclusion, I feel that we could all benefit in our society from each other. We have to
share this space for a long time, so the sooner we learn to live together, the better it would be for
our generations and the many future generations yet to come. Burnet is no longer racist and you
can see that in the way we treat other people of different origins. It has taken our town years of
growing up to do, but I think before it is over it we will all seem like we are all just one, big,
happy family!