Knowing who you are in this world is extremely pivotal to the kind of life you’ll live. Learning the answer to the question “who are you?” is a journey in life that I have not yet completed. The outcome of how I deal with the many obstacles in my life defines the person that I am becoming. I realized that my family members and background from Brooklyn contributes pieces to the puzzle of finding out who I am. There were many painful, loving, and unexpected events that I have encountered in my life that taught me lessons and guidelines to this never ending journey. I began to look at each day expecting to learn something new about myself.Being a part of Professor Kareem’s class allowed me to embrace my culture, and expand my mind to the world outside of me. It wasn’t until I was taken out of my Brooklyn home into a community where so many people with so many different backgrounds congregated, that I recognized the value of Professor Kareem’s teachings.
I came ot the conclusion that learning how to survive in the Brooklyn environment became a part of who I am as a person,it contributed to the mentality, and perspective of the way we viewed different issues. Although our learning environment was fairly difficult to learn in, where we are from does not create who we are it only affect us. Meaning that we can’t allow the violence, and wars of our communities to define our work habits in school. We must push pass that because we have our own war to win, the war of creating an identity that represents our race in a positive way. We are able to use other contributing factors that make us who we are to rationalize, prioritize, concentrate, and focus on who we want to become as a person. I am of African American decent, and there are some things about this world that we as a people must be attentive to in order for us to create a better living environment for the generations to come. I embraced my brown skin and was glad to finally open my brown eyes to the reality of the world in which we live.
