Diversity

SOCS 185

Diversity Paper

When we were first assigned this paper in week one, I thought to myself two things. One, this class was going to be interesting, which it is and has been, and two why would I want to manually put myself in a situation that would be uncomfortable to me, don’t those kinds of things happen naturally? So I consider myself African American, or black. I am heterosexual, and have never thought about dating or being physically involved with the same sex as I am, which is male. So I thought about the topic a lot, and I choose to accompany my roommate (whom me and him have been friends for about 3 ½ years now) to a section of the city known as Boys Town.

Now, if you do not know what Boys Town is, it is basically an area that starts around Belmont and Halsted, near a place called Spin City which is a very popular gay bar/club. Growing up I was never introduced to homosexuality, and never knew what it was until like the 7th or 8th grade (by the way my roommate is Bi-sexual). So we walked down boys town and I notice a lot of different things than any where I have been. First off on about every street pole, there is like a rainbow flag, which I am familiar, a gay pride. Second I see a lot of females with really strong male features, so I assume they were men cross dressing or they had sex changes. All of this was a little different for me, because during the whole walk to the destination we were heading to, which was the Center on Halsted (3656 N. Halsted) me and my friend were holding a conversation and I would stop talking a little bit to observe the people I was around.

When we finally reached our destination, we went inside a building which was kind of like a recreation center, mostly in support to homosexuals. My friend had told me about the place before and it was where he would always get the male contraception. He told me to walk up to the security desk, there would be a bunch of magazines, and a fish bowl full of condoms. So I walk...