Phase 1 Cover Letter 

In this essay I talk about the experience I had with a white kid saying the n word around me in middle school. I go through the lead up to the story in depth, while giving background on the person who said it. I then speak on the incident and explain all the emotions going through my head which is something I was told to do in the feedback that I was given. I also spoke on the aftermath of the event by detailing the repercussions I was supposed to face as well as the reaction my mother had and my peers. I think I did a good job of illustrating how I felt throughout this process which led up to me slapping this kid, and I also gave the reader an idea of how the environment was like. I think I could have done a better job at making the essay universal, this was a big miss because it could have brought a whole new dynamic to the essay. I would have been able to bring in statistics as well as detailing the tensions between white and black people. I also would have spoken on the history of Ukraine where he is from, and tied it to the war that is going on now, where it has been reported that black people were being denied the ability to exit the country and board trains. This shows that racism is still a big issue in Ukraine today and I vividly remember my mother telling me about how there are a lot of bigotted people from Ukraine, this explains why Bogdan’s father didn’t want to bring his son to the middle school that I went to as he was concerned about the amount of black people there were at this school, something I was told by the counselor of the school as well as the deane. I think making this essay a universal one, it would have been more relatable for readers, while also adding a great amount of significance to the story. This would have helped make this story a more memorable event. It can be beneficial to have conversations like this as it can help bridge a gap between different ethnic groups, by adding a perspective that may be understandable to some. 

Overall I think I did a good job of detailing the main characters of this story one of them being me, and I think that it shows how words can have a heavy weight in a social setting when used by certain people.