I can remember never getting new books in school. That feeling of opening a book and smelling the newness, of hearing the creases crack with unuse, and the pages being stuck together with freshness was never something that I got to partake in. When I got my books, they were used, worn, and already had someone elses name in them already. My name was never the first name to go in. I can remember getting textbooks at the beginning of the year and every year hoping that my name would be the first to go in my book, and year after year it never was.
This was not a spoken microagression, in fact, it was quite the silent discrimination, yet it did not go unnoticed by me or anyone else around me. We (Black students) knew that in the other schools with White kids got brand new books and we were shipped their old ones.
There are many movies that are coming out that are reminiscent of these times. They seek to tell these stories and perhaps even marvel at the long way we have come to be equal in this country. Yet sadly, when we turn on the news and see some of the travesties that befall Blacks, and Native American's as recent as a few days ago, we must sill realize that we have quite a long way to go before we recognize and heal the riff that has long separated us from understanding, cooperation, and love.
This class is great, but should be offered in school every year until graduation. This would help sovle a lifteime of madness.
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