What I Learned from New Orleans

You all probably know what I learned from the NCORE conference while I was in New Orleans, but I am sure you are wondering what New Orleans taught me about race, ethnicity, and diversity. You wouldn’t think it, but I learned just as much about those topics as I did during all the presentations at NCORE.

For probably the first time in my life, I felt like a minority. I was in a city filled with people who looked nothing like me, came from different backgrounds, engaged in different cultures, and who had been in the city longer than I have. I was only in New Orleans for a couple of days, but I can only imagine what life would be like if I lived there permanently. Still, this experience put me in the shoes of a minority, if only temporarily, and I felt out of place. I am guessing that minorities in this country today must be feeling some of that. I can use this feeling in the future as a peer mentor or a therapist. It has helped me to feel more empathetic towards other races, and I think this is a good thing.

Another thing I learned from New Orleans is that not every city in the United States is the same. I previously thought that a lot of the bigger cities were the same. My only experience with large cities came from my time in Florida and seeing cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Des Moines. New Orleans is clearly like none of those cities. I’m guessing this mostly has something to do with the location and history of the city. The streets are different from any other city I’ve been through. There are large crowds that sweep throughout the city, and street performers are aplenty. How does this relate to diversity? It shows that cities themselves are diverse. It shows that I have had this preconceived notion about what makes a city in my head, and that notion has been busted. This tells me that I should keep an open mind towards things like this.

Most importantly, New Orleans taught me that I should never go into a situation with stupid stereotypes in my head. Basically, I went to the city believing that it was still majorly devastated after Hurricane Katrina. I believed that gangs ran around the city, and I was going to get robbed while I was there. I had all that in my head, and I am sorry to say that I ran with a stereotype that I heard most often. I am happy to say that stereotype was busted. I know that there may be some gangs in the city and some areas are still in need of repair years later, but all of this was not as extreme as it was in my head. Part of this is general ignorance while the other part is the media making a bad situation sound even worse. I’m glad that the team leaders for my college sent us on a tour of the city, so I could eliminate my preconceived notions. This makes me think about what other cities and people I have preconceived notions about.

So New Orleans helped to enhance my learning about NCORE. But what does this all mean? How am I going to apply this knowledge to the real world? If you want to know the answer to that, you will have to read my final blog post on the subject tomorrow.