Culture Shock

Perhaps one of the first major realizations I made while in Buchanan County was the fact that human development is subject specifically to the environment in which we develop. It is difficult to say that there is right and wrong opinion of any issue, and that is because we only have available to us the knowledge and ideals with which we are presented in the formation of our opinions. As my group and I sat talking to Robert, for whom we were helping build a handicap ramp, it became fairly apparent that we had been raised with very different ideals and in a very different background. Robert recently turned eighteen years old so naturally someone in our group asked him if he would be voting. He laughed and responded light heartedly, “Man, I don’t know. Isn’t anyone to vote fur.” Then he aggressively inquired to us, “Ya’ll ain’t voting for Barack Obama are ya?” Awkwardly we laughed, and knowing what his response would be I decided to pursue the issue asking, “Why don’t you like Barack Obama?” Robert laughed and responded, “We don’t have a lot of blacks round here. To be honest, I just don’t really like blacks.” This was a response that anyone from my background would find very offensive, but the truth was just as Robert said that they really did not have many African Americans around where he lived. Robert had grown up in a southern culture, which was very sheltered from change, and racism was still ever present. Given the location of his residence tucked away in the mountains, his response was not all too surprising. However, we discussed the issue further with Robert indicating that we saw African American people to be complete equals and saw no difference between them and any Caucasian person. We explained to him that we had black friends, and he was very accepting of the idea. The fact is that these small towns in the mountains are still subject to ignorance that arises from their seclusion. The spread of ideas is not prevalent in some of these areas, and it is an issue that schools need to address. As a friend and schoolteacher who I will discuss later in this blog said, “Education is the key for these kids.”