THE SCHOOLS CONTRAST NIGHT AND DAY

As of this year of 2023, for 2 years of grade levels, I have attended quite an unhealthy student environment for a 12 and 13-year-old child. For context, nearly every day of my 6th and 7th grade middle school year, I have recalled hearing and witnessing multiple students use the racial derogatory slur known as the “n-word” on a daily basis.

 For 7 days a week and 365 walking hours a year, I remember the peers I used to stroll the halls along with address not just each other, but other minorities as well with a widely known offensive term that they simply thought was normal to say. As a 13-year-old today, my still fully functioning brain cannot wrap around how other children can repeat such disgraceful slang towards a race and make what they thought were funny and so commonly acclimated jokes. At that point in my life, I gave up on trying to make a difference in that schooling environment. It was nearly impossible when the head directors would not suffice any punishment for the racism.

Every report I gave of recalling the acts of racist sayings was thrown by the wayside and not taken to a serious extent. I felt alone and for quite a while, I didn’t want to continue to attend school. I knew my parents were also filing complaints to my school, but they were disregarded as well. So in total in that situation as a 13-year-old what do you do? Really, nothing. I tolerated it, I tortured myself to go to school until the year was finished because I didn’t have a choice. But as the year went by, the n-word calling did not let up, and as my happiness and welfare being educated slipped, my parents made the immense decision to move.

The long nights of dreading to attend school the next day got shorter, and the counted months I had for the ending of the school year finally finished before I knew it, my parents were selling the house and we were packing our belongings saving for the big move to my now current home in Williamsville. I now can finally say I have very few to zero troubles waking myself up in the morning and actually being delighted to attend my new school. I have friends, teachers, and an actual life outside of sadness and a bubble of depression. I have what I now can say, a healthy schooling environment for myself.

The unconditional love and gratefulness for my parent’s major decision is never-ending. I still can’t fully wrap my finger around the fact that my good spirits were such an important factor in their own separate lives that they simply packed up their previous lives and just moved…all like that. If I have to say thank you a million times more than I already have, then I will.