The Ethnicity of Non-Ethnicity: The Ethnic Autobiography of the Dominate Culture

Abstract

As a white protestant male, I am a member of the dominate culture in the United State. Growing up I never had to question if somebody was doing certain actions because of my ethnicity. I never had any difficulty finding people who looked like me, and being able to be accepted into a group. I never really thought about my skin color or my racial background. My mom never had to explain about my Germanic heritage, or did I ever wonder about cultural practices. All of these where vary far removed from my growing up experiences growing up.

Going thought the school of social work, there is often discussion about diversity and cultural competence (sensitivity). These topics are relatively new to my knowledge base. Growing up, I did have many Latino and black friends, but never thought much about it. Due to being a part of the dominant culture, my culture did not seem that important to me. When we were sitting in class an hearing some people of color saying that dislike it when people say that they are color blind or when people say they don't care about their ethnicity I thought that they were just taking the comments wrong. It wasn't until later when I thought about it, that I realized that it was their ethnicity had become a major portion of their life. This was also one of the first time that I really realized that I did not see my ethnicity as a major determining factor in my life.