Snow Brown's Incredible Story

I completely agree with the post above. It is true that you have to experience discrimination in order to understand it and not simply witness it. We can all witness prejudice everyday and feel for the people instantly but do we feel the same the next day same time? Not only did I relate to the essay Snow Brown and The Seven Detergents but it also made me stop and realize where I am right now. I am a first generation immigrant and have only been in the United States for a few years. There was a huge cultural shock when I first started school. Not only was I thousands of miles away from home in a totally different world, but I was “different.” My race, culture, and religion were just the opposite of the people around me. People constantly asked me where I was from because they knew I looked different. I knew I was being treated differently than others based on my race, gender, culture and religion. I instantly knew I had to make some changes to fit in. However, first impression matter, so I was still being judged based on my color, the way I dress and my accent. No matter how hard I tried to look “normal” I was still different. One quote from Subramaniam’s essay that really grabbed my attention was “What happened to kindness, a little humility, helping eachother…Her family was going to hate her when she went back. They would not recognize her.” (233) This quote made me realize how we can be quick to judge and come to a conclusion about others based on stereotyping instead of accepting and celebrating our differences. We also get caught up by what people think of us and try to alter ourselves just to be accepted to the point where we lose our identity and don’t belong anywhere. I believe this applies to any group of people and definitely is a problem to this day. It affects our education, career, and life everyday because we live with it and not simply witness it.

I also enjoyed the article “Snow Brown and the Seven Detergents” by Banu Subramaniam. There is no question in my mind that the events and attitudes that were present in the article are still present today. We as a society should embrace difference. People from different backgrounds have different things they can “bring to the table.” I do believe that medical schools and other professional schools like graduate schools are more excepting of difference than they use to be. Furthermore, medical schools like to see people who apply who major even in things other than science. This is due to the philosophy that they will bring a more well rounded knowledge with them, other than just specifically a extensive science background and knowledge. Don’t get me wrong they still require that you take science classes like biology, physics, chemistry etc. In the article/story they always wanted Snow Brown to change herself into just a generic scientist. Where’s the fun in everybody being exactly alike? The world would be an incredibly boring place. The wide variety of different types of people with different kinds of backgrounds is what makes the world such an interesting place. In short, everybody’s differences should be respected and people shouldn’t be ashamed to be who they are.