As a high school student being bused to a more diverse neighborhood school I was actually fortunate for the experience. Of course the usual fears of not knowing were with me initially but very soon those fears diminished as I learned my new classmates as human beings instead of boogie monsters. Like many of us who had been segregated from different races growing up the old prejudices and biases were rooted within us but not so much with me. I have always felt that color is not a barrier to being human. I also was willing to learn about our differences and our commonalities. I went into the experience determined to grow positively from it.
I was rewarded with getting to know some of the most amazing people who not only had the same values as I but who were willing to fight for those values. I also learned about my own privilege and how I got preferential treatment in the most fundamental of things while they were shunned and condescended to. My anger at my own privilege has never left me and makes me want to fight for minority equality even more to this day. Despite my new friends knowing I was more privileged than they were due to no fault of theirs they still embraced me into their lives and today I still count many of them my friends.
What busing did for me actually changed the direction of my life and is probably the most influential act in developing me into an honorable person with principled values that I learned as an effect of the busing policy. I would have gone to an all white high school without busing and the chance that I would have been ingrained with the importance of diversity would have been hard to imagine. If we all could share in each others lives with respect and dignity at our formative ages then our world would be less fearful and more welcoming. Busing did this for me and I will forever be a proponent of a more exposed racial experience in our educational system and life in general.
I was rewarded with getting to know some of the most amazing people who not only had the same values as I but who were willing to fight for those values. I also learned about my own privilege and how I got preferential treatment in the most fundamental of things while they were shunned and condescended to. My anger at my own privilege has never left me and makes me want to fight for minority equality even more to this day. Despite my new friends knowing I was more privileged than they were due to no fault of theirs they still embraced me into their lives and today I still count many of them my friends.
What busing did for me actually changed the direction of my life and is probably the most influential act in developing me into an honorable person with principled values that I learned as an effect of the busing policy. I would have gone to an all white high school without busing and the chance that I would have been ingrained with the importance of diversity would have been hard to imagine. If we all could share in each others lives with respect and dignity at our formative ages then our world would be less fearful and more welcoming. Busing did this for me and I will forever be a proponent of a more exposed racial experience in our educational system and life in general.
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