Racist People

Racist People

A lot of the time I didn’t fit in because people had different skin colors than me.

Racism sucks. A lot. I have experienced it first hand at my old school. Sometimes it was by accident and sometimes on purpose. I’m African American and I went to a private catholic school, that was majority white American. That was a cruel place but I had a few good learning experiences. And I made some really good friends. Everyone has their hardships and times they didn’t fit in and now I will talk about mine and make it sound more tragic than it is because that’s usually how these types of storytelling go.

Racism, also known as racialism, is the belief that humans can be divided into distinct biological entities known as "races," that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and personality, intellect, morality, and other cultural and behavioral characteristics, and that some races are innately superior to others. The phrase also refers to political, economic, or legal institutions and systems that participate in or perpetuate racial discrimination or otherwise exacerbate racial disparities in wealth and income, education, health care, civil rights, and other sectors.

I am not of the catholic faith but I went to a catholic school.I remember the teachers would just look down upon me and I don’t know if that was because they were racist or they have never seen a black person (there was five black people in the school, me being one of them). It was probably both. They would treat me differently in a way. I struggled to read and write and the teacher who helped kids who struggled with that called me the r slur a bunch of times. As a second grader at the time that hurt a lot. That made me feel very out of place.

Racism in the school I used to go to was so regular, some people probably didn’t even think it was racist, because they hadn’t been called out for it. Kids would stare at me in the hallways and they just looked at me. Like they had never seen anyone who wasn’t of their same race. People would ask if they could touch my hair, because it wasn’t straight and instead curly. I took that as a compliment majority of the time, but this one time this girl, she was in the fourth grade when I was in seventh and she came up to me and asked if she could touch my hair and I said yes, because I thought she was just interested in how it looked. She touched and then began to make a big deal out of the fact she had oil on her hands now. The oil from my hair might I add. She went over to her friends and started whispering to them and pointing at me. I felt out of place there like no other. One of her friends was black too, but she still made fun of me for having oil and stuff in my hair, because I don’t want to go bald by the time I graduate college and I want my hair to look healthy. The black girl who was laughing at me, oh my lord, I am gonna slander her hair. Her hair had been straightened so many times the heat damage was real. Her hair was down but all over the place and she had a purple headband. She hadn’t put oils in her hair or anything. It was so dry and crusty. I was going to tell her that, but she would have started crying and played the victim in the situation and so I was the bigger person and I walked away. I felt out of place at the school I called home for the majority of my life.

There are a lot more instances, but those were the main ones. I won’t fit in everywhere I go, but I at least want to fit in somewhere. That is so inspiring on my part. And I like all genders so they are going to be even more mad, but I will find my crowd one of these days.