I attended a small public school in which the population of students was about 50% white and 50% black. There was literally not one Hispanic or Asian student at the school. I was always so proud of the fact that I went to a school in the south that literally did not experience one single racist issue........until the latter half of my senior year. We had one student that transferred in and got into a fight with someone within the first two weeks at our school. The transfer student was black and he was a distant cousin of one of the guys on our football team. Our football team was a very tight group of people and it also perfectly reflected the overall demographics of the school.

The fight between those two students escalated when the distant cousin became involved in the pursuing arguments from the initial fight. Racial slurs were used by both sides(I have no idea which side started this to this day). Regardless of how it started and regardless of the fact that I was not involved at all I was subject to racist name-calling by people I had been friends with since we were 5 years old. I was so surprised and disgusted to see the people that I had known and called "friend" for so long turn on me simply because I was white.

It has been nearly 10 years since it happened and while I am perfectly able to randomly run into these guys on occasionally and cordially speak to them and laugh and reminisce the scars from that moment will never heal. That moment has damaged my world view forever but I still have hope that one day we, as humans, will find a way to rise above it.