My experience with racial discrimination
High school was a challenging time for most people for a plethora of reasons. Personally, my freshman year was the most difficult to deal with. I had just entered a school in which I knew nobody; the first few days I had to sit alone during lunch. Trying to make new friends was almost impossible because most students had already formed their social groups from middle school. Due to my lack of companions, I mostly kept to myself; kept my head down, studied, and rarely interacted on a personal level with anyone. To some, my timidness and solidarity was a reason to treat me differently; and my different skin tone did not exactly help alleviate the situation. It should be noted that I was amongst one of the only Indian and dark skinned students in my school.
One group of boys in particular would be cruel with their jokes. By the time January rolled around, I was used to being called a terrorist, son of a gas station attendant, and untouchable to name a few. Also, since my parents grew up without much money themselves, they tended to be on the stingy side when it came to financials. My second-hand clothes and accessories therefore also became a point of difference between me and the rest of the school who had the latest versions of the I-Phone.
Dealing with racism has been one of the hardest things I have dealt with in my life and I have only had just a small dose of what happens in other places in this country and all over the world. The Internet links together people from all over, yet that does not stop some groups of people from posting hurtful messages to harass members of another race or ethnicity. Most of the time, these posts are from the mind of teenager who does not know any better, but to some, a playful insult can be interpreted as a hateful message and only leads to further hate, with the Internet as a medium.
One group of boys in particular would be cruel with their jokes. By the time January rolled around, I was used to being called a terrorist, son of a gas station attendant, and untouchable to name a few. Also, since my parents grew up without much money themselves, they tended to be on the stingy side when it came to financials. My second-hand clothes and accessories therefore also became a point of difference between me and the rest of the school who had the latest versions of the I-Phone.
Dealing with racism has been one of the hardest things I have dealt with in my life and I have only had just a small dose of what happens in other places in this country and all over the world. The Internet links together people from all over, yet that does not stop some groups of people from posting hurtful messages to harass members of another race or ethnicity. Most of the time, these posts are from the mind of teenager who does not know any better, but to some, a playful insult can be interpreted as a hateful message and only leads to further hate, with the Internet as a medium.