WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH...

When I was 10, we moved to a small town called Warren, PA. When I started at a new school, I noticed right away that there was little diversity. When I say there was little diversity, I mean there was only me and one other person of color. This person was from Guatemala as well, so we related to a certain extent. Throughout elementary school I don’t ever really remember there being any type of racism or hatred towards me based on my skin color. However, middle school opened up a world of racism that would continue up to the day of graduation in 2021. 

I would describe my town as very conservative, racist and predominately white. If you look up Warren, it will tell you that it is 96.8% White, with only 0.468% of African Americans. You heard me right, 0.468%. That should tell you all you need to know before I continue anything else. The kids I went to school with were racist; I blame it partly on the parents. It’s something that’s learned from the people they are surrounded by, and I can only assume it comes from their family dynamics. I could be wrong, though.

Starting in 7th grade, the going started to get tough. People were getting older, and no longer had the mindset that they did in elementary school. They started noticing that my skin was different, and started to learn the difference between ignorance and blatant racism. They didn’t like the ignorance route and went with the racist route. People would make “jokes”, calling me a “cotton picker”, a “slave”, and their personal favorite, a “n*gger”. I would consistently get called “the whitest black person they’ve ever met”. I questioned this one a lot because I didn’t quite know how they thought how a black person “acted”.

There was one boy that I had a locker right beside. Everyday, it was more of the same slurs. Every single day without fail. Finally, after about three weeks of going through listening to him hurl slurs my way, I finally went to my parents about it. I would describe my mom as a protective mama bear. Her being the mama bear she is, went straight to the principal about it. The assistant principal’s solution was to move me away from not only him, but my classes and friends as well. I was the VICTIM and I was the one essentially being punished. They didn’t realize that this was essentially telling him that what he did was okay. This however, made me realize that the educational system was going to let me down as a minority for the rest of my time there. 

For a school district that claimed to be an activist of racial discrimination, nothing ever seemed to get done to solve the problems. There was never any discussion or open conversation about it, and I think that’s where they failed. I know that so many kids like me go through this every day. There was always a social divide between black and white, and it should never have to be like that. We need to open up a better line of conversation so we can see results and resolve what’s going on. 

“Humanity does not differ in any profound way; there are not essentially different species of human beings. If we could only put ourselves in the shoes of others to see how we would react, then we might become aware of the injustice of discrimination and the tragic inhumanity of every kind of prejudice.”

― John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me

My siblings and I<3