Who am I? I am my parents' little genius, bringing home the top grades and high test scores. I am their inventor, tinkering with anything and everything to find out how it works. I am their lazy teenager, needing encouragement and sometimes coercion to get any work done. I am my friends' comic and prankster, always ready with a smile and humor despite the gravity of any situation. I am the introvert, at ease alone or with close friends, unnerved by an audience. The world around me has taught me that I, as a teenage boy, am very likely to crash, flip, or otherwise destroy a car, and also that I am completely obsessed with the opposite sex. I, as a white male, am one of the oppressors of the world, stereotyping, discriminating, and in general trying to assert my own superiority. I am an American, a symbol of freedom, equality, and justice. I am, proudly, a member of the diverse community of Oakes college here at UC Santa Cruz.
             I have always been part of a community in which, ethnically, I was part of the majority. Once I reached high school, the minorities made up a much larger amount of the students. This was when race and ethnicity first became an issue with me. A very good friend of mine was Mexican, and proud of it. Over the course of my time at high school, I realized that nationality, race, ethnicity, and religion were not facets of a person that should be ignored or hidden, but accepted. However, as a young child, I never attached any significance to the different skin colors of my classmates. Everyone looked different; some people looked very different. I only had a mild curiosity as to the reason that while the darkness of most of our skin was determined by the time we spent in the sun, some of us were just naturally one color. It was only later that I realized that skin color was related to one's heritage, as well as his/her tan.
             I am of distant French and German heritage. However, I h...