1. Reflect on the first four lessons of the unit and on your classmates’ presentations.

In the first few lessons of the unit, we learned mainly about the 4 concepts: identity, stereotypes, prejudice, and racism. I really liked learning about issues that impact the real world right now. It was interesting to shift away from the textbook for a while and do more interactive work. During the presentations, I really enjoyed hearing everyone’s stories. I did not think that some people experienced prejudice in those ways, and it was very eye-opening. As for my own presentation, I learned a lot more about myself through it. I got to really understand the incident and evaluate it more. However, it was pretty uncomfortable to share about such personal topics in front of the class.

2. What did you learn about identity, stereotypes, prejudice, and racism?

I learned that identity is all about what you think of yourself as. People can identify you as something, but identity is something that only you can decide. I like to this of it as identity with the “I” as in you. I learned more about the difference between stereotypes and prejudice. I learned that stereotypes is sort of like classifying someone as something, rather than prejudice is acting upon it. Lastly, I learned that racism is the major influence of prejudice and stereotypes. Also, that race is a term that society has created, and isn’t real.

3. In what ways did your ideas change from the initial lesson when we created word webs on the white boards?

My ideas changed from the first lesson because I learned the actual definitions of the word, and more real examples of each word coming into play in real life.

4. How does race shape the way we see ourselves and others?

Race shapes the way we see ourselves and others because it makes us more aware of everyone’s differences. Our brains categorize people into groups, and when this is done, the differences become more real. If we look different than others in a society, we see ourselves as that. Different. While if others don’t look the same as a group of people too, they will seem more unknown, and with unknown sometimes comes fear. The race and color of someone can change how afraid we are of actually meeting them.

5. To what extent do our ideas about race influence the choices we make?

It usually varies to what extent ideas about race influence the choices we make. Sometimes, it could be making a small decision that isn’t affected by the ideas of race as much. Or it could be another decision that is clouded up by ideas of race. For example, if you don’t want to get in a taxi just because someone is a different color than you, ideas of race would have influenced us in a small way. I think living in Hong Kong, ideas about race don’t exactly influence our choices too much. We are all mostly familiar with different races of people, so we don’t let it influence us. However, for some people who aren’t exposed to other races may be more afraid, and let their assumptions take over completely.