#diversitywins

This photo is very meaningful to me for a number of different reasons. I took this photo two years ago while working on a job that consisted of drilling a 100 foot deep well at a very nice house in Danville, Ca. Our usual two man crew consisted of just myself and co-worker Scott (the other white kid pictured) but this job required another set of hands so we needed all the help we could get. the owner of our company knew of a young man named James who lived in Oakland who was looking for work and eager to start, so he called him up and James was working with us the next day. James is the other fellow in the photo above. Being a young African American male from Oakland, James was a bit overwhelmed at the town he was working in, who he was working with and admitted that he was very nervous and didn’t feel comfortable around “white people” like us. We had only just met and Scott and I wanted to do everything we could to make him feel as happy and comfortable in his new work environment. I remember this day vividly and how it started off on a rocky path but James soon realized we were great, kind, hardworking guys just like him and the color of our skin meant nothing, we were all exactly the same. This was one of my first experiences dealing with uncomfortable racial issues and I quickly learned how absurd labels like color really were. James explained that he saw all white people as the same, with stuck up, holier than thou attitude that demanded extra respect for this idea of “whiteness”. After a long day of laughing, struggles, hard work and new friendships we had all completed the task together and all became very close to one another. I still talk to James today even though we do not work together and we have remained great friends ever since. Race is nothing but a made up idea to divide society, we are all the same humans.