Hey there fellow panda!
I hope the New Year brings you joy and happiness. If it fails to do that, I hope it at least brings you wine and chocolate.
We often discuss matters relating to minority groups and in recent times, relations seem to have taken a step backwards. That's why I think it might be illuminating to hear from you if you grew up in a minority group and maybe you could share your experiences with us, good and bad.
It would be great if you could focus on things that are perhaps not usually reported, so that we might learn how to be more welcoming and inclusive in future. The last thing I want is for everybody to be falling out with each other, so please keep it bright and breezy in the comments!
To make this as accessible as possible to everyone, it might be that you were the only girl in a boy's school, or the only LGBTQ+ in your neighbourhood. Your views are welcome, whichever minority is yours.
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I’m white. I grew up in a totally white community. I had NO friends. The only verbal interactions I had were with this one kid in fourth grade who would take every opportunity possible to walk past my desk and lean down and quietly call me foul names.
Why? We belonged to a church which definitely was not mainstream. Not one you’ve heard of nowadays but in ways similar to some religions today. We had no holidays except Thanksgiving. We traveled 60 miles to attend church on Saturdays. We weren’t allowed to do anything in anyway related to ‘pagan’ holidays. No art, no music class, no school programs. We were farmers but no farmers around us had anything to do with us. We were ridiculed by them for baling our hay or plowing our fields on Sundays when we should’ve been in church. (Everybody went to church in those days.)
Things got a little bit better when we went to junior high as our rural elementary school joined in with the town school. By high school when we went to a county school it should not have been a problem at all, but by then I was so messed up it didn’t matter.
I moved away from there as soon as I graduated from high school. I never went back.
