“Someone wrote the word n*gger all over the bathroom.” I said
“So?” was her response
She was someone I thought I could turn to. We talked on the bus every day. It was continuous, boring, just trying to be nice conversations.
“I just do not understand why people are so ignorant, there is so much racism and
nothing is being done about it” I said.
“What the hell do you mean racism? I really don’t think that it exists. I’ve never
seen it myself. But, you know, it is statically proven that black people are dumber than white people. Not trying to be racist or anything but I definitely do believe that.”
She continued to make these remarks such like this ignoring what I had said. I knew she was not the most accepting person, but I never expected this. This was a person I was close friends with a little while ago, so if she was that ignorant imagine the potential ignorance of people I don’t know.
This was the year that Obama was elected president. There was a lot of talk about this event within in the school. Not everyone supported him as the new president; in fact many opposed the appointment. These individuals did not oppose the appointment because of his politics, but because he was black. There were things said in the hall ways. Then it was taken to the next level, I was using the bathroom when I saw the word n*gger written on the wall. A student in my school hated black people so much that she wrote the word on this stall. She knew it would be accepted. She was purposely hurting other people. This word kept appearing written on the walls after that. It got to the point where the word had to be removed from the bathroom. But it kept returning. No one made a big deal about it. It seemed to be let go.
Coming from a family where acceptance was abundant, I would have never imagined living in an area where there was so many closed minded individuals. The largest issue I saw firsthand among them was racism. These individuals and I do live in a small area which is predominantly white, but my family had the opposite opinions of many of them. My background has made me a very accepting and tolerant person. The word that was written on the walls offended me; I would have never even imagined using that word in my life. I have a very hard time understanding why someone would hate another person based of something as small as the amount of pigment of skin. I have found from personal experience that there is nothing different between someone with dark skin and me. We all have the same wants and needs no matter who we are. Intelligence does not discriminate. Our differences shouldn’t be an issue. We should just simply accept.