In preparation for the biggest football game of the season against our across town rival my school gets pumped and usually someone goes overboard. So it wasn't surprising to hear that some FSHS kids went across town to vandalize LHS; however the words written across the field were the punch on 2(photo can be seen at the bottom of the post). Presumably in the middle of the night, instead of studying or preparing for the next day of school, a group of teenagers drove across town and wrote a racial slur across the LHS football field. Many people were disgusted to say the least, others pointed fingers but an overwhelming amount of people made it a point to be known that this brought shame to our school, and that we're not all like that.
In 9th grade a few students embarked on a class trip. When they returned home, they relayed information, detailing their trip. They spoke very freely about how their pilot on their return flight was Arabic, and they joked about how fearful they were. Based solely on the color of the pilot's skin these people decided his religion, morals, and goals, no matter the joke it's left a bitter taste in my mouth. That was the first time I noticed blatant, widely accepted and unquestioned prejudice. From that point onward I found it easier to catch things of that nature.
I find it very common for people do do this, decide someone's motives I mean. Often times when people meet me they make a note to let me know that I'm black, but I'm not "black black", or I'm an Oreo, a coconut, not like most black people whatever you want to call it. Every time these words leave someone's mouth, it's safe to say that they harbor prejudice based on race whether that be subconscious or on purpose. Anyway they try to state it will inherently come out racists or offensive because that's exactly what it is; and I take offense.
So as a black girl with braids and all I can say that if anyone were to ask me my views on the LHS vandalism I would say this:
Racism is inherently based in hate, and we, being all of Lawrence, shouldn't allow some randos to create any more animosity between the schools. I'm not going to apologize on behalf of FSHS because FSHS didn't do this: a handful of students who go to FS did. I, just like 90-something percent of the student body, had nothing to do with this and we shouldn't have to apologize for what happened; however, we should start a conversation. Race relations are a very important topic that needs to be discussed especially in modern times as we see more and more diversity coming about. It's upsetting that it took literally spelling it out for people to see that racism hasn't gone away, but if everyone starts talking about race and ultimately changes negative prejudices that even one person may harbor we can at least say we turned a bad thing into something good.
Just like with religion, skin color doesn't come in a cookie cutter. Not everyone is going to act the same, dress the same, do the same things, because that's just human nature. Mankind isn't meant to be uniform, it's not even in our DNA! I resent prejudice based on anything about me. If you've just met me, you don't know me. I'm sure just about everyone knows the saying "You know my name, but not my story" and even though it's a dumb quote, it's very true. Don't decide who someone is, or how they should act. Clear your palette of the ideas of other people based on outward appearance. Not all Arabs are Muslims, not all Muslims are terrorist, not all black people are on welfare (more white people on welfare than any other race fyi), not everyone on welfare is black nor are they all the welfare queen (and she doesn't exist)...the list can go on forever and ever because that's the point! Sure stereotypes may have some truth in them, but the key word is some.
THE FOLLOWING IMAGE CONTAINS OBSCENE IMAGES AND OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE
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