The Education of Asma W, “Illusion v. Reality”

This is my final paper for my race relations in society course that I took freshman year, one of two courses that I loved at my previous university, Penn. And after sophomore year, I could not take certain things and so I transferred. It is LONG but not that Long. :) Sorry about that but I could not cut it into two and also, I was looking at old documents and just could not resist putting it up...it is a heart-felt work. These were quite emotional years.

But I really loved this class and the professor who taught it, Professor Ray Gunn. He said we could call him Ray but that was just a bit awkward for me.

I know this was not a great final paper and I really could have written more on what the reality was for the "other" that you will read about but I really did not make many friends at Penn because I was a commuter student (one of about 15 in a graduating class of 1300)...yeah, that was my life.

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Racial integration, segregation, social inspirations, and other confusing thoughts raced through my mind. As the train moved to keep up with its schedule, the blurring scenes in front of me took me deeper into my confused and puzzled thoughts. In more ways than one, I wished I could be like the other riders on the train, indifferent to the discrepancies in front of me, worried about making it to my destination on time. I too, wanted to close my eyes and maybe forget how much the scenes in front of me high lighted the harsh truths of the world I lived in. As the beautiful spacious homes with two car garages and blooming back yards lived in by beautiful and perfect white people passed by, I was haunted by the scenery I knew was yet to come.

The contradiction between the city and the suburbs was plainly in front of me, and seeing the transition from the white dominated suburb to the minority dominated city occur in a short 15 minute train ride made the differences all the more potent and powerful. Philadelphia did not have much in common with the suburban landscape of Lansdale. In “Philly,” homes were row houses, with small patches of green in the front masquerading as lawns. The peaceful, quiet, “American dream” kind of atmosphere of the suburbs was to be a dream for those living in the city, because it was noisy, unsafe, and polluted. In fact, sirens of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances were the sound track of the city while in the suburb it was the humming of the lawn mowers, children riding their bikes and trying new skateboard tricks, which created quite a racket and were a bit distracting. More than the physical appearance of the city, what hurt more was to know the people of the city, their life stories and struggles and then know that there was a place not too far where people also had stories, but most were of opportunities granted to them and successes reaped through them.

The above train rides opened my mind to the disparities of this world, and to thinking of the world in simplistic terms of black and white. I had moved to Lansdale, a suburb outside of Philadelphia in the senior year of high school. I had known that my surroundings would be different but the realization only hit when I saw the differences through my own eyes in the train rides I had to take to get to into the city, first to attend high school and then to get to Penn. This was the essence of the things that consumed me during my senior year in high school and freshmen year at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania. I was to be constantly faced with the facts of how most people, including myself, lived and how the privileged few lived.

Without any doubts, through out my freshmen year at Penn, I was confronted with the facts that I was part of an unfair world. I began to think of race and class and how much everything came down to these two things. It was much easier for me to hate whiteness, in general, and not delve deeper for reasons of the unfairness and to find things to change, instead of to hate. I was a person consumed by the one track mind of how life is mostly difficult for only those of colored skins or poor backgrounds. For me, the student population who attended University of Pennsylvania was an ideal example of people with perfect lives quite unlike mine. Their worries were of where and on what to spend their parents’ money, what the new trends and fashions of the season were and would they pass their courses with flying colors. I, on the other hand, had to worry about my ailing grandmothers, one living with my parents with Alzheimer’s and one with arthritis living in Pakistan. I had to think of how to pay for the expensive course books which most students bought at the University book stores without any worries as to how expensive the prices were. I had to live at home, and fend for my family while my mother visited her ailing mother in Pakistan. This overwhelmed me with the feeling that I was like other disadvantaged colored people, struggling and scuffling with life. I believed that the world had its ways of taunting us with the perfect lives of white people. Little did I know how much my own belief about the illusion of a privileged person’s perfect life could change if only I listened and learned through those “other” people.

My education into the challenges faced by people of all colors of this world began with my listening to the stories of my friends. On the outside, it seemed like they lived perfectly happy lives without any worries, but under the surface they were people who had their own trials and tribulations. It was true that they were white and rich but more than that, they were people with struggles as genuine as mine. One had a family broken up through the parents’ divorce; another had to deal with the legacy of overachieving siblings and parental expectations. One had a brother dealing with the disorder ADD. Getting close to people who were facing life with their own crosses to carry and obstacles to conquer was eye opening. I was blinded before this experience and holding dearly to my own illusion of perfect lives of perfect whites because facing the facts that those “other” have problems too meant accepting that life is a struggle for everyone no matter skin color or class.

Though all this opened up my eyes to another reality in this world, it still did not change my belief that most people who suffer are those of complexions other than white. I did learn at Penn that I wasn’t the only one worried about the disparities in this world and that people of all color and creed were working to make their impact felt. People were trying in their own small way, as I would try in my life to make a difference. Today, I think of the crude ways I judged people just because of skin color and class and realize I was doing the same thing that most people do to people of color and lower class. Changing my beliefs and accepting the truths instead of holding on to my own illusions has become crucial because it feels wholly uplifting to know that we are all united in our struggle to deal with the misfortunes that life hands us at one time or another.

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edited to add- mentioned my grandmothers in there, my dad's mom is the one who passed away this june, she had alzheimers.

Edited once more to add an attachment that is also a paper I wrote for this same class and it might give a better understanding or it might not, this is for basho...don't know if he or she will read it but...doing my best here.
OK, trying to attach, is not working, will try again later...

So, forget all that and...Here is a link, Please click and see if it works