Have you ever felt invisible?

Through out my life there were many times I have felt invisible. Most of the time I felt invisible was when I was at school or in a school setting. When I was in high school I use to experience it a lot, where stereotypes made my friends and I invisible. I grew up in the Providence Public School system. I attended Mount Pleasant High School. I felt like the high school I attended was pretty diverse.  The things people use to think of us or where we attended school were "we was the ghetto kids." It seemed like the school I attended did not have the best reputation. I use to play volleyball basketball, and track and field in high school. The schools I played against were usually known as the predominantly "white" schools. I can remember when my team and I walking into the other schools to play, people would look at us differently.  Also, I remember this one moment like it was just yesterday. My team and I walk into the gym and they automatically switch the music that was being played to the music they thought we would like.  There were many times the referees would treat us differently. I use to get really mad and wonder what I was doing wrong. My coach, who was a "white women," said to me, "I see what they are doing, you better keep playing. I will back you up." 

In Hobson's Ted talk, she spoke about Color blind and Color brave and the differences between the two terms. If I am correct color blindness is a learned behavior where people do not notice race, which is where people ignore the problem of racism. Color brave is where you deal with racism head on and deal with diversity. You get into the real conversations about race, even though they can be hard, awkward and uncomfortable. I believe many teachers and coaches I encounter were color brave. They was not afraid to speak to us about how we would be treated outside of our schools. They basically had that conversation with us in how we should "act" or "talk" around "those" people because they think it is the right way to be. When I say those people I mean white people. The teachers never used any terms in a bad way, but they knew how we was getting treated outside of our schools because of how we were perceived. 

I feel like a youth space like YIA can be an antidote to invisibility because they are helping youth find their voices and become leaders. Hobson spoke about how racial discrimination should stop robing another generation of their opportunities. I feel that a program like YIA have youth that can create awareness. Youth are also the future generation and a program like YIA can create another strong younger generation that can fight against this.