I think that I have. My parents definitely had a different experience than I do now. My parents are both African American and over the age of 65. They grew up in a decent neighborhood in different sides of Detroit. Of course being born in the 50s means you experienced and grew up with heavy racism (shocker). My mother would tell me stories about when she was a child and how people wouldn’t let her and her family inside of a restaurant when it was raining because of the color of her skin. Trying to go through the front door because she didn’t know what “whites only” meant.
I don’t have to worry so much about sun down cities when traveling at night as much as my mom used to. I can say that I grew up much differently. As I mentioned in write-in 12, my neighborhood was pretty diverse. I have experienced racism but not upright like how my parents did. They worked at a Ford plant in Wixom from their mid 20s to the time they retired. They used that money to help raise me in a better place than what they grew up in.
I can’t say that I have social mobility for myself but I’d like to do the same thing my parents did and help my family live an even better and stable life than what we do now. I’d hope to have a stable job, live in at least a middle to upper middle class home and not have to worry about being able to cover all of my bills for that month and still live in comfort. Now that I write this in class the only social mobility I can think of for myself is that my parents weren’t able to go to university, or at least half of them didn’t finish. So I’m going to take this opportunity to move up in mobility.
