Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, the underground railroad, segregated schools, and slavery. Anyone who has been in a history class has heard these names before. They were only a few people who helped start the movement for people of all color to have the same rights as white people.

N***a is, unfortunately, a word used that I would like to discuss. When did it become acceptable to use this as a slang word? Someone please explain to me how saying n***a is not offensive but saying n****r is. How does that make any sense? The N word used with an “A” is cool and a word to describe a “friend”, but when used with a hard R it’s offensive. I’m sorry shouldn’t it be offensive both ways? I shouldn’t feel wrong for getting offended when someone says “my n***a”.  

February is known as Black History Month, but it doesn’t seem to mean as much as it used to. In school, it is just skimmed over. It might be mentioned once or twice but it seems that it has been forgotten. I’ve always been interested in African-American history, it’s weird for me to think about the fact that only 50 to 60 years ago the friends I have wouldn’t even come near me with a 50-foot pole just because of our skin color. I wouldn’t have even been born because my mom is Italian and my dad is Black. They wouldn’t have even met and if they had they never would have considered getting together strictly because of skin color and my brother and I would have never been born. I have been fortunate enough that I have managed to escape a lot of racism that some people experience but I have experienced racism here at Hays. When I was dating this girl my sophomore year we happened to be an interracial couple but no one thought anything of it because the bigger thing that people would focus on was the fact that we were two girls not that she was white and I was black. I figured I would never have to deal with anything because hey it was 2016 interracial couples was just a thing that happened that no one thought about. Then I was told that someone had no problem with the fact that we were gay but it was because we were of two different races. It felt like a slap in the face, and I automatically felt uncomfortable. Seriously? Someone was judging us because I’m black and she’s white are you kidding me? I was beyond angry but I let it roll off my back.

However in middle school something happened that made me realize that my skin color is different than most people around me. (Just as a little background on me, I had never thought about it until there was an incident and this is what made me think twice about certain things especially when Trump got elected and all the shootings specific to African-Americans started happening.) Back to the incident, in middle school this boy, just for the sake of privacy we’ll call him Jax. Jax was being really loud and obnoxious when we were all supposed to be working quietly and individually. I politely told him to be quiet and he stopped for about 5 minutes before he started back up again. I lost my patience with him and quietly told him to shut up. Jax then turned to me and said: “What are you going to do about it Black woman.”

I froze and my eyes went wide. I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. Black woman. No one had ever said anything about my race and I had never thought about it until now and I was rudely awakened to the fact that racism was still very much alive. After the initial shock, I bowed my head and tried to go back to work and just let the situation go away but I couldn’t stop the tears from coming and Jax looked completely unfazed by the what he had just done. The girl in the table next to ours saw me quietly crying and started to comfort me telling me not to listen to him and the teacher came over and noticed what was going on because the girl started to go off on Jax.

The teacher asked what happened and the girl comforting me explained what happened. Long story short he got transferred to another class and I had to file a report against him. It was an awful experience and I wish I could forget it but I will always remember it and unfortunately, it will always find a way into my anxiety and make me fear things that I shouldn’t.

Racism is still very much alive and my experience is just a fraction of what happens. This needs to be something that more people talk about and we need to find a way to end racism once and for all because it has absolutely no place in this world.