- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mar 05, 2016
- Mon Mar 07, 2016 11:11 am
#22447
This was originally going to be my diversity statement, but I decided to ditch my other topic, and extend this one into my personal because of how important it is to me. This is a very rough draft, and i'd appreciate feedback on anything not related to grammar. Thanks in advance.
We don’t say the word bomb in a classroom, shouted the assistant principal to me in front of my father. I had just completed a 2-day suspension and my father had to come up to school for a conference so that I may return to class. My father sat next to me in a quiet and dim conference room as the assistant principal rudely explained how lucky I was it didn’t go any further than this.
There was just one problem with the whole process; I was never given a chance to state my side of what happened.
It was the last period of the day during English class. Students were becoming restless as the day was coming to an end. I had made friends with this white student, who was heckling me. To my surprise, in an attempt to embarrass he shouts out that I have a bomb. Dead silence ensued in the classroom as the English teacher immediately called for security and I was removed from the classroom. I was never more humiliated in my life.
While in the deans’ office, the school officer asked me if I had anything on me I shouldn’t be carrying, I said no. That was the only question I was ever asked, after that it was just a series of how I shouldn’t say that stuff, and how I shouldn’t discuss anything that might be threatening to the school. Even as I tried to explain I never said any of that, no one wanted to hear it. Due to the severity of the matter, the assistant principal was going to handle the situation, when he came in all he did was call my parents up and inform them I will be suspended for 2 days and that they needed to come up for a conference when my suspension was completed. What hurts the most is when I got home and tried to explain to my parents how I never said that nor initiated anything that had to do with it. My parents didn’t care; it fell on deaf ears. All they kept saying was how no one likes Muslims and I shouldn’t be talking to anyone because of who I am. I heeded to the worst advice my parents ever gave me. Till this day I can’t fault them they were afraid, the negative backlash Muslims receive in particularly when situations like this arise causes many issues.
I never wanted to go back to that English class, I was too embarrassed. This one white kid who I thought was my friend whom I joked and laughed with had humiliated me. Since that day, I spent the rest of high school and early college years, extremely reserved. I had issues developing relationships with people who weren’t like me due to my fear of being judged or encountering a similar situation as before. I missed on opportunities to play on the baseball team, a sport I loved and other school activities.
It wasn’t until my third year of college, when I took a political philosophy class that this all began to change for me. I enjoyed the class environment, but even more enjoyed the ability to discuss issues of justice and fairness and how it relates to current events. The opportunity to be able to state my opinions with out fear of being negatively treated was relieving. I began taking more philosophy classes that dealt with similar issues, and eventually majored in philosophy of law, in which I excelled.
While working on a project for my Philosophy of Law class, in which we would pick a topic from the syllabus and introduce it to the class and write a term paper on it. I had chosen the topic on terrorism. As my date to present this topic approached my fears began to come back. I asked for the professors help and I remember explaining to her why I was anxious about explaining this topic. She assured me not to worry and that I was doing excellent work thus far. We also began to discuss the details of my past experience. My professor who was a retired attorney had encouraged me to look into law school. She reiterated how I demonstrated the ability to excel in law school and that I would be of great service to others like me.
We don’t say the word bomb in a classroom, shouted the assistant principal to me in front of my father. I had just completed a 2-day suspension and my father had to come up to school for a conference so that I may return to class. My father sat next to me in a quiet and dim conference room as the assistant principal rudely explained how lucky I was it didn’t go any further than this.
There was just one problem with the whole process; I was never given a chance to state my side of what happened.
It was the last period of the day during English class. Students were becoming restless as the day was coming to an end. I had made friends with this white student, who was heckling me. To my surprise, in an attempt to embarrass he shouts out that I have a bomb. Dead silence ensued in the classroom as the English teacher immediately called for security and I was removed from the classroom. I was never more humiliated in my life.
While in the deans’ office, the school officer asked me if I had anything on me I shouldn’t be carrying, I said no. That was the only question I was ever asked, after that it was just a series of how I shouldn’t say that stuff, and how I shouldn’t discuss anything that might be threatening to the school. Even as I tried to explain I never said any of that, no one wanted to hear it. Due to the severity of the matter, the assistant principal was going to handle the situation, when he came in all he did was call my parents up and inform them I will be suspended for 2 days and that they needed to come up for a conference when my suspension was completed. What hurts the most is when I got home and tried to explain to my parents how I never said that nor initiated anything that had to do with it. My parents didn’t care; it fell on deaf ears. All they kept saying was how no one likes Muslims and I shouldn’t be talking to anyone because of who I am. I heeded to the worst advice my parents ever gave me. Till this day I can’t fault them they were afraid, the negative backlash Muslims receive in particularly when situations like this arise causes many issues.
I never wanted to go back to that English class, I was too embarrassed. This one white kid who I thought was my friend whom I joked and laughed with had humiliated me. Since that day, I spent the rest of high school and early college years, extremely reserved. I had issues developing relationships with people who weren’t like me due to my fear of being judged or encountering a similar situation as before. I missed on opportunities to play on the baseball team, a sport I loved and other school activities.
It wasn’t until my third year of college, when I took a political philosophy class that this all began to change for me. I enjoyed the class environment, but even more enjoyed the ability to discuss issues of justice and fairness and how it relates to current events. The opportunity to be able to state my opinions with out fear of being negatively treated was relieving. I began taking more philosophy classes that dealt with similar issues, and eventually majored in philosophy of law, in which I excelled.
While working on a project for my Philosophy of Law class, in which we would pick a topic from the syllabus and introduce it to the class and write a term paper on it. I had chosen the topic on terrorism. As my date to present this topic approached my fears began to come back. I asked for the professors help and I remember explaining to her why I was anxious about explaining this topic. She assured me not to worry and that I was doing excellent work thus far. We also began to discuss the details of my past experience. My professor who was a retired attorney had encouraged me to look into law school. She reiterated how I demonstrated the ability to excel in law school and that I would be of great service to others like me.
