African Americans

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The social group collection that I chose is African Americans. I chose this social group because I thought that it would be interesting to hear a new story. I want to learn about this social group because I feel like it’s going to be interesting. After reading the article I was blown away because I wasn’t expecting that, these kids have gone through more than you can imagine. I would recommend this article to skaters and people who have gone through hard time in their  life.

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The stories that I’ve read about this social group show experiences such as growing up in a neighborhood filled with gangs and poverty and their friends getting murdered. These experiences show how bad their neighborhood is. Other words or ways that the individuals in this social group might use to describe themselves are resilient and talented. For example, in the article, it states how “He said skateboarding offered him the chance to explore a world beyond Baltimore.” The experiences that I share with individuals in this social group is skating around my neighborhood. This experience is different than my experience because my friends were not getting murdered.

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The individuals in this social group are different from one another because they all come from different neighborhoods. An example of this is one of the skaters has been stabbed multiple times and shot. For example in the article, it says “That’s a fate Yaasmiyn Whitaker, 21, knows he avoided. He lifts his shirt and points to stab wounds and the scar left by a bullet.” Successes that the group has faced has been being sponsored and flying to Germany. Challenges that the group has faced is growing up in the hood. Certain perspectives that are missing from this collection are privileged skaters not having to go through that trauma. The challenges that individuals in this group face that other people outside the group might not understand are how hard it was to grow up in a place like they did. For instance the article says, “The thin young man spent much of his life moving around Baltimore, living with different family members. He has a younger brother who was recently sent to prison. He remembers with sadness friends who have been murdered.” I think that others can do the following to understand this social group by listening to their story link  Assumptions that people might make about people who identify within this social group could be that they are gang members. Stereotypes can negatively affect individuals who identify within this group because they worked hard and made really good decisions to get wear they are right now and people making stereotypes can ruin their reputation and get misrepresented. Stereotyping is wrong because people get misrepresented in many different ways.

Communities can work together to help individuals within this social group. This will help the social group because they will have support from a lot of people and might spark a good change in their neighborhood. Link  What I can do in particular to help this social group is support them by spreading their story so more people know about them and they can get in more world competitions.