Mary Louise Pratt, a university professor at Stanford, coined the term contact zone and described it as "social spaces in which cultures meet, collide and compare among them" (Ways of reading 319). We all have to cross touch zones throughout our lives, whether that means finding a job at a different company or being exposed to new cultures at school. We must all cross contact zones to help society overcome racist tendencies. I went through many contact zones starting from my first day of kindergarten, attending new schools, and eventually learning new cultures from people at work. The first touch zone that stuck with me was my third grade classroom. It was evident from day one that I would learn about new cultures. Board of Education schools were legally segregated. This helped create a hateful America that was very lax in treating different people with respect. The Civil Rights Movement was able to help end this segregation at great cost. Many lives were lost and property damaged due to the collision in this contact zone. African-American culture managed to penetrate through the barriers placed around the culture and eventually overwhelmed the cultural zone. After overcoming obstacles, African-American culture managed to penetrate mainstream media and people finally realized that they were not that different from anyone else. The downside to all of this would be that African American culture would not be socially accepted by everyone until the 1990s when many public figures were African American such as Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Will Smith. Thanks to Nike's excellent advertising techniques, Michael Jordan managed to get many non-African-American people to admit that you don't have to be Caucasian to be influential. This is a revolutionary step in the progress needed to eliminate the hatred that was still felt in the 1980s. The final step to eliminating hate is to expose everyone to a contact zone from the start. Communities are places where groups of people can meet and unite as one. For example, I am a member of the student body at the University of North Dakota, but I am also a member of the Grand Forks community. Being in the student group at the University of North Dakota allows me to be connected to other members of my group but, the fact that the group exists in the Grand Forks community allows the students to be able to interact with the community. The Grand Forks community continually creates touchpoints. The easiest ones to think about are the sporting events here. People from all over the country attend UND, and some have never seen a hockey game before. Coming to UND allows these students to embrace the culture of the Grand Forks community. Next, another example of the Grand Forks community creating a contact zone is when they hold things like the fry feed. The Fry Feed is a potato bowl event where people from all over the area come together to celebrate UND football and learn about the culture that exists for everyone in Grand Forks. Finally, Grand Forks holds concerts and events at the Alerus Center. These concerts and events vary and as a result people from different backgrounds each get a little thing they like. Various events, such as a country concert, help start conversations among people about the different cultures they might come from. This is helping the community come