Personal Narrative Speech Script

Personal Narrative Speech Script

130152 노형석 V4 18th Wave

Racism. Just saying this word, the concept of racism might be a bit vague for the majority of people. However, racism is a concept that is deeply rooted in our everyday society, and quite often, we are unconscious of it. And it is important that racism is not something that is far away from us. As a matter of fact I was also a victim of racism during my stay in New Zealand. I would like to use this speech to share my experience of racism and some of my thoughts about solving racism in our society.

It all started the very first day I first attended my new school; St. Paul's. Of course not everyone was so hostile to my appearance but certainly some seemed very uncomfortable with the fact that I would be using the same classes as they were. Regardless of what they thought of me, the school started some kind of an uproar and I received much attention for the first 2~3 months. I was like some kind of an alien to them because for most of them, I was the first Asian they've ever seen in their entire lives. Well, most of the students were kind enough to help me easily adapt to the school curriculum. It was just some huddled up groups that were causing problems which shed some darkness over my overall school life in NZ.

They made some wretched sounds which I guess would have been an imitation of a monkey. Some liked to tease on me saying that my skin looks like mud. Looking back, we were in elementary school, so nothing too serious came up, but still, at that time these insults were a bit of a shock to me. Panicked at that time I tried to single-handedly fight them off from insulting me, but being the minority at that time, it was nearly impossible for me to fight them off. And the more I resisted the harsher the discrimination became. In addition to that due to the fact that I was so focused on just fighting the insults I was unable to recognize the many helping hands that I could have reached out to from both peers and teachers.

Then one day I received an invitation from a student called Alex for a sleep over at his house. Looking back Alex was always the kindest friend to me and he tried his best to help me when I was getting teased by peers. During this sleepover I was able to stay with Alex for a whole day, we played Xbox, went out to play basketball and by the end of the day, I was able to overcome what was left between me and Alex, maybe some racism.

This sleepover worked for me as some kind of a turning point to my remaining school life in New Zealand. Having Alex as my so called 'Best Friend', I was able to wake up from my blindfolded attempts to fight off the insults and I was able to focus on the good friends that I already had. Able to escape from the endless nightmare of torment, I was able to recognize that there were many kind friends like Alex around me. As the time went by I began to hang out with more and more friends and even the peers who tormented in the past approached me and tried to start a conversation with me.

Difficulties is the unknown factor that could dawn on you without a second notice. And some might be just too harsh for you to overcome face to face, problems like racism. I believe that at times like this the right solution is not to tackle the problem on your own but to reach out to somebody near you and return to the problem with a different perspective and solution, with their help in hand. For example, I was able to overcome racism problems with the help of my friend Alex and when I opened my mind to every help that I could get from my peers and teachers, racism became a minor problem for me in the future. Reaching out is the most important thing when solving problems like racism.

Furthermore, as I mentioned before, racism is still a social problem that still exists in today's society such as discrimination of foreign laborers in Korea. To solve this problem, I believe it is crucial that we create ways to allow these laborers to reach out to somebody which they could rely on. Improving policies regarding support for these laborers and recruiting people whom they could rely on and get help will significantly help in solving racism in Korea.

The Human Rights states that every human being is equal. And it would be our task in the future to eliminate the overlooked racism that is existent in today's society. "Equality is the true Justice."

Thank you for listening.