Although we all try as hard as we can to live a life without perpetuating stereotypes, there are always times where people slip; and times where people laugh or say things that are completely unacceptable. A personal experience which demonstrates the imperfection that still exists today was remember when I was eight years old. I went to an all white school, and I had lived in an all white neighborhood for my entire life. One day a student of color arrived at my school into my grade. The talk around campus is to repugnant to repeat; however, I regret every day that I did not speak out against some of the things that were said about him. The jokes, the comments and the insults all played a part in one big question: Why?
The answer is simple: education. Even at a respectable, private middle school that precedes colleges such as Harrow; Eton; and Radley, we were not aware of the oppression and hardships that minorities had been through and are still enduring today. To educate kids about tensions and the harmful impacts of racial jokes, slurs, and microaggressions is an imperative lesson that has become somewhat scarce in classrooms around the world. Choate is one of the few schools that has half of its students from diverse areas around the world. No more ignorance and no more isolation; kids need to be shown the destruction of racism in the lives of everyday people.
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