Journal 4 "White bread!"

I was born and raised in Pahokee until I was around 7 years old and my family wanted to move to Port St. Lucie. Pahokee is a predominantly black town and I am a small white boy, you can imagine that I was ridiculed quite a bit. I was called everything from “cracker” to “honky” on a regular basis. I was never one to get upset by something that somebody says to me, honestly I think “honky” is one of the funniest words I’ve ever heard and if you honestly can get offended by someone calling you that, you need to get a sense of humor. I also grew up listening to rap first, so whenever I would hear schoolmates talking about rap and I jumped and talked about a song, I would get the usual “man you crackers don’t know anything about rap, you all listen to rock and country”. They would act like I was challenging them to a rap battle instead of just talking about music. Apparently white guys aren’t allowed to know about rap, I guess I didn’t get that memo. Have you even heard of Eminem before? Does he not count or something? Also since I was a minority, everyone in my class automatically thought I was the smartest one because I’m the “white boy”. I’m flattered that they’d think that, but just because I’m white doesn’t mean I automatically have a 200 IQ. I also would be ridiculed a lot because everyone would think that all white people automatically speak with a phlegm-like voice and say the word “certainly” every 2 or 3 words. I find it all incredibly hilarious and I’ll purposely speak like that to get a reaction out of everyone, but come on, if you really think that, you’ve been watching too many TV shows. I’m not trying to gain any street cred or anything but that’s just honestly how it was growing up there. If you’re white and living in Pahokee, you can guarantee that something will get said to you because of your skin color. Just to add in something a little interesting, when I was about 6 years old, my dad took me to work with him for a day. He had to go to a juvenile detention center in Belle Glade and one of the inmate kid’s called me “white bread” and made me cry because I got laughed at badly by the other kid’s. I see how it is…I see how it is.