During the seminar I was interested in the topic of equality. I instantly was thinking about school today. Are kids today in are school equal? I think on the level of respect that we are because we almost dress the same, men wear collared shirts and slacks and women wear dresses or collared shirts. Clothing is something that we use today to show if we are of equal standing or not. I believe that we no longer look at the colors of peoples skin but instead we look at the way they are dress. The way they are dressed shows that they are clean and they want to show their best effort in any way shape or form. We find this not to be true during the time that Jim Crow lived. "But the colored of a Negros skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target." Jim often felt the lack of equality do to the color of his skin. Equality is something that has not come easy for our country because of slavery, women's rights, workers right and many other things. We are in a constant battle.
Equality did not come cheap nor does it come cheap today. I have experienced people trying to buy my friendship just to be equal. They wanted to be cool and strong with hanging out with other people that were cool from the start. These people were willing to sell their self respect just to be apart of the cool crowd. When I read, From Stride Toward Freedom, I was able to connect this though to a statement in this story. "The Negro cannot win the respect of the white people of the South or the people of the world if he is willing to sell the future of his children for his own personal and immediate comfort and safety." It is expense to have the things that are most important to us in life. Whether its buying friendship or jeopardizing safety history has shown us equality comes with a high price. I enjoyed this seminar because it allowed me to think freely and focus on an important topic like equality.
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