The Tiny Brown Professor

The essay, The Tiny Brown Professor, is about a four year old colored girl who attends an all-white, Jewish preschool, and the situations she and her grandma encounter for being of a different race. The children's parents were not very accepting of them. They avoided conversations with the grandma, and did not allow their children to have play dates with the young girl, Mikaila. The grandma's urge to remove Mikaila from the school was altered by the changes she could see in her granddaughter. Mikaila was enthusiastic about the things she was learning and enjoyed sharing them with her grandma. She didn't care if she was different. She was proud of who she was, and made it a point to make others see how special her difference was. The grandma, on the other hand, allowed the parents reaction to affect the way she responded. She withdrew herself from the situation and made herself unapproachable. She chose to spend most of her time with the children. Who didn't seem to mind that she was different. She had come to realize that she couldn't let the parent's behavior keep her away. Mikaila had taught her there was no place she didn't belong. By the end of the year, the parents became more accepting of them. They had conversations with the grandma, and Mikaila's schedule was now full of play dates.

The story brings up the question how one develops positive or negative attitudes towards people from other ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds. There are many things that can influence the attitudes we develop towards others who are different from us.

In the story the parents go out of their way to avoid the grandmother, because she's a non-Jewish black woman who doesn't fit into their world. They did not allow their children to go on play dates with the young girl. Obviously, the children were able to see their parent's negative behavior. This could eventually lead to the children acting the same way towards the young girl. Another way children develop negative attitudes is through the action of their peers. An example of this would be, when they see their friends treating someone poorly for the way they look they tend to go along with their friends causing them to develop the same behavior. Finally, the media can also play a big role in shaping ones negative attitudes towards others from different backgrounds. The news loves to play up racial issues on campuses across the nation, police shootings of minorities, and arguments over religion. Reporters love to twist the truth to stir up controversy. These types of stories promote more unneeded negative attitudes towards minority groups.

The story also points out that how you feel about yourself will affect how others treat you. In the story Mikaila knows that "she is brown, not afraid to say so, and an expert in getting everyone in range to see how special her difference is" (Smith, 270). She did