This year in 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, where the Supreme Court began its journey to end school segregation among students in the classrooms. Based on a study, “In the country’s 100 largest school districts, segregation between white and black students has increased 64 percent since May 1998” (Kuta, 2024). These statistics make me sick. Even after slavery, the issue of racism is still going on in our world today and progressively getting worse. This only makes me wonder what is going to happen in the future. As kind people of the world, we need to come together to get the issue of segregation fixed as soon as possible.
Looking back to my high school days, I had some of the best times throughout my years but also some of the worst experiences. The issue of racism directly affected me in the sense that it was all around lurking beneath the walls of my high school. In the school, most people were not outwardly racist, but that is because the number of colored individuals in my school was extremely low. You would think that because of the lack of diversity in my school, racism would not be even thought of. Well, you thought wrong. We are now both thinking to ourselves, "What the hell, this is really still an issue." Yes, racism is still very prevalent in the world today.Many people have the misconception that being racist is just saying the “N-word” or calling someone a “cracker”, no it goes way deeper than that. Racism makes people feel less valued and left out due to the color of a person’s skin, which can not only break someone's confidence but lead to worse issues.
So everyone knows suicide is a leading cause of death among many individuals, but did you know that “for black young adults ages 15-24 years, suicide is the third leading cause of death, with approximately 3000 Black Americans dying by suicide each year”(Fickman,2020). These rates are actually freaking insane. People are taking their lives due to bullying in schools and racism in both the schools and communities. Imagine yourself walking into a place every day where you feel like all eyes are on you and everyone is constantly judging you for your skin color. I know as a person I would absolutely hate it. It is so sad that innocent people have to feel so much pain caused by people's words. How hard it is to just mind your own damn business and let people be.
Going back to the statement I made earlier many people think racism is just calling names, but it is not. Racism has many different forms; this leads into my next point. While I was in high school, I saw racism in every way possible. If a new kid who was colored or Hispanic came to my school, all you could hear going down the halls is “He or she does not belong here” or “go back to where you belong." This is only one of the incidents I encountered over my years in that high school. Class day in my high school is a day to celebrate the seniors as they move into the next chapter of their lives. My school does an activity on class day where it is all jokes, but a student goes in front of the school and makes fun of each teacher and certain students by insulting something about them. Well, my senior year, a colored student was the one to go in front of the school; he started off very funny, but it quickly turned into not a joke. He made a point in front of the whole school that it was made known he was the only “Black kid” in agriculture class. The students in his class would bully him almost every day, picking out the difference in his skin color and making remarks such as “Black kids don’t do this type of work." Now what the h*ll kinda comment on this day in age. I think people forget that slavery was centuries ago and it should've stopped then. People who have different colored skin are NO different than you as a white individual, and they are capable of doing everything the same way anyone else does. This is when I knew something needed to change.
Many people also get the misconception that it is only the students who are being racist; don’t worry, to make the issue even worse, teachers have a name for being racist towards students also. An observer was in a classroom where she directly witnessed racism by comparing racial oppression with discrimination based on height, and the teacher tried making her point correct. The teacher said, “It’s like if we don’t allow short people to teach…It’s like if the principle asked me to go get a master’s degree, that is fine, because that is something we can do, but if you’re prohibited to teach for being short, you can’t do anything”(Ray,2022). The observer makes the point that you can’t compare or discriminate against something you cannot change. She is very right, the teacher completely blew past the whole point of the topic, RACISM, and turned it into something it was not. This is unbelievable, and is happening all over the world, where not only students are being racist but teachers and parents are also.
Discrimination in schools and communities is still very prevalent today. The challenges these individuals are facing need to be stopped. If you are a person who may look at others differently because of their skin color, really think before acting on anything. This issue goes way deeper than just a comment made; these people are still the same human being as you are and are no less of a person because of the color of their skin. The people who are being discriminated against have feelings too, and a simple remark can really take a tool on a person.
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