It is interesting that Dr. Fletcher thinks of your upbringing as writing the software of your brain. I'v never thought about it like that. However, if my brain is such a "software," how would I rewrite it and in what capacity. There are so many areas in which I was raised that are so different from people in the south. It might as well be two different countries as far as I am concerned. I grew up in a primarily white upper middle class family. I saw my first black person when I was in high school. We were not taught any racism in our family. The black person I knew was a girl we ice-skated with. Her parents were well educated Princeton University professors and I thought all black people were "the same as us" in that they were well educated and lived at the same standard as us (the white upper middle class). I didn't know any poor people (white or black) and nothing to compare them too. So, in a sense, my "mind software" thought all people were the same. It was not until I moved to the south that I experienced racist comments (things I heard from older white people say) about black people. I do not consider myself at all racist, and I didn't understand fully why these people felt this way. In some respects, I or I mean my husband has experience a reverse racism. By this I mean, that my husband has. When he applied to the post office for a job, he was told that he could never get in because he was not black and a woman. He was told that on several occasions. Now I know that sounds ridiculous, but in some respects it was true. When he did finally get the job (mainly because his test scores were so high due to extra points added because of his military service), he was different a minority. Most of the people he worked with were black and female.
It also seems to me that blacks and many minorities as well as the poor have more advantages than whites (male or female). When I tried to get some scholarship money to help pay for school, I was told that if I had any American Indian blood in me, if I was a single parent on a fixed income, or if we didn't make too much money, I could get all kind of financial help. There is so much money out there for the poor to go to college and as a "white middle class" woman there is virtually nothing. It doesn't matter that I pay for my school out of my lousy $12,000 a year (which is well below poverty level) because they look at what we both make together instead of just what I make. Even still, what we make together is just barely above the "line" on what qualifies for a grant. When it comes to certain things, the poor have more advantages that the middle class.
I remember when cell phones first came out. I was in the grocery store and we were barely making ends meet. Tollie had just gotten hired at the post office and money was still tight. I stood in line and watched the person in front of me pay for her food with food stamps and was talking on a cell phone. I couldn't understand how she could afford a cell phone and have food stamps and I could barely afford our food and was not qualified for food stamps much less a cell phone.
Over the years, it seems my mind's software has changed although I'm so sure it is for the best. I am constantly trying to keep an open mind. I didn't mean to vent so much, but maybe that is a way of helping me to retrain my mind by getting all this frustration of how things are so my mind can change its software.
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