Racism 101: Are you a Racist?

Facebook is a strange place. It’s always weird to see people from school that I haven’t seen in years pop up as a friend request. A while ago, there was someone who sent me a request and as soon as I saw her name, my heart started to beat faster. I was instantly taken back to High School.

I don’t mean that in a good way. 

This girl was my “Friend” in high school. The girl that was my friend because of my skin color but because of my skin color, thought she could say things that she REALLY couldn’t.

Ya know, THAT “Friend.” I still felt anger when I saw her face, years later.

Still, I’d made a conscious decision to accept any people from High School because I wanted to give people a chance. Anyone can change, right?

Well, turns out, she HADN’T changed.

In high school her favorite word was the N-Word. Now the reason’s this was okay for her to say was because she had dated a black guy once and because she wasn’t really saying it. She was just saying it, like ya know, in a rap song. Oh and also…black people say it so…

Yeah, she was one of those. Now in high school, if I were to “Overreact” enough to say that is was not okay, she would turn on me QUICK. She was my “Best friend” for a while. This was at a point when I’d moved to an all white world and was the only non-white person in the entire school. She felt entitled to say it. She felt that I was wrong to say that she couldn’t because the mere fact that she hung out with me proved that she wasn’t “Saying it in a racist way.”

Sadly, I hung around her for way to long after these ongoing encounters happened. It was high school and I desperately needed to fit somewhere. If I remember correctly, I even apologized to her for getting upset about it.

Eventually, there came a point where I couldn’t take it any more. There was just TO MUCH running over me just because she could. She loved thinking she was “Powerful” and that is exactly what it was about. Power.

As if my life wasn’t hard enough. Blah! Anyway, I am not going to turn this into a pity party. I’ll get back to the story.

Basically, after being “Friends” with her on Facebook for a few months, we started to talk and she actually seemed to be pretty cool. I think almost a year went by before I saw her and two other people typing out the words to a rap song and making sure to spell out EVERY word.

That was really all I needed to know that she was still, her.

I was passive aggressive for a while. First I just blocked her updates from showing on my page. Then, when she kept trying to talk to me and I just couldn’t justify it anymore, I purposely told someone who LOVES to start trouble that I didn’t like her and like a shot, she deleted me!

I know, I know. Not a grown up thing to do but….that’s what happened. She’s gone and I’m happy.