When I was in the 2nd grade, I had my first encounter with inequality. It was cheerleading tryouts, and most of the girls my age were very skinny and pretty. My cheerleading coach was Ms. Sanders who was also African American, she had no problem with different race but apparently with weight. I had been in cheerleading since kindergarten and according to my recent coaches, I was “Very energetic, and on task.” cheerleading for me was the only thing I enjoyed doing. Tryouts were divided into to two teams, gold and purple team. The purple team was the team going to competitions and performances. While, the gold team was the team performing at school games and smaller occasions. Of course like every other girl in trying out, I wanted to be on the purple team. So I tried my very best in the tryouts and I saw that I had more experience than most of the girls there.

When the tryouts were over and the girls were waiting for the paper to go on the board, the coach told pulled me aside and told me “Priscilla you are very good, better than most of the girls on here the only problem is that we don’t think our uniforms could fit you so in the meantime, you could be captain for the gold team. “ As a kid you would see how big of an impact it made on my life. It was the first time I was ever called out about my weight and I didn’t find it right. I went home that day, and feeling that the day that was supposed to be awesome ended the worst it could of. When I got home my mom noticed my glum state. “What’s wrong alien?” In that comforting nickname I spilled the misfortunes of my day.

My mom made me feel better by saying that being different was okay, and that it just made me unique. Although my mom agreed the way my coach told me was wrong. The next day my mom went to the school and asked to speak to the coach. When she did she asked the coach to apologize and to give me more consideration on the purple team. Instead of being of on the purple team, I said “No thank you, I will rather stay on the gold team and help them cheer and feel better about themselves.”

This was my first encounter of inequality.