color blind color brave response and YIA

   There have been times  both in my past and present  time  that I felt invisible. I have felt it among family, friends, co-workers and in classes.. Sometimes  I'm around people but I feel like like i'm not actually among the other people there because i'm reserved in the background not really interacting with the group. There could be several reasons for  me feeling invisible including being shy,  I wasn't included in the conversation, or because I felt i didn't fit in.  The video and tweet helped me think about being in a group setting where there might be some people who are not engage but may have something important to say so I  should try to include them.  The video brought up a good point about expanding who  I talk to;  from every background because I could learn a lot from different people.

    In the video  "Color Blind or Color Brave?" I feel like i can relate to what the Mellody Hobson spoke on about race and dealing with it head on. I am very outspoken about racist issues but because I talk about it, people shy away from talking to me about it because I bring up facts, I have views when ever I feel like my race is being misinterpreted, or discriminated against people roll their eyes and may think that what I'm saying is annoying but its actually true. An example is when my brothers and I were walking to a park at night in Warwick. We were in predominated white neighborhood so I knew from my own experience that people in the neighborhood might find 4 black men walking down their street suspicious. I was proven right when a Warwick police officer stopped us walking to our car and asked where we were going along with our IDs. My brothers willingly gave their IDs but i was hesitate because i knew we didn't do nothing wrong and he had no right to. After when the officer allowed us to leave, i ranted about how it was not fair and how we were racial profited. My brothers shunned me out and kept talking about other things ignoring what just happen. They learned to shy away from talking about racism and discrimination and i felt left out at that point. i felt left out because i was the only one concerned and had all these emotions about it. They played video games and laughed forgetting what happen and I just sat down not really in the mood to talk. I learned because my generation was more outspoken about it and their generation avoided it at all cost that I couldn't really engage with my brothers about it and felt like an outcast.

i'm glad there is YIA because they can be the ones to close the gap between people who want to talk about race and those who ignore it. Their program creates the opportunity to have deep discussion and it seems like most of them respect one another enough to listen. They can be the model for the community to follow so it can spread beyond YIA and into other community centers, and on street corners so race does not have to be an invisible topic. YIA can also role model how having a diversity program in all position is beneficial to an organization. I will continue to support YIA so they can show communities how important it is to have diversity in their program.