Column: Prejudice By Molly McKenzie
Calhoun High
Calhoun, GA
In the year of high school I have experienced, I’ve heard plenty of conversations I wasn’t supposed to. Of them all, the one that affected me the most was one between a girl named Amber and her friends, talking about an Islamic boy named Omar in our grade. Apparently, earlier that day in gym, he had taken the Lord’s name in vain after missing a shot in basketball.
“I told him he could go to hell if he wanted to, but he was not gonna talk about my God that way,” Amber sneered, looking around her as if expecting approval.
I didn’t hang around to hear the response, but personally I was appalled. Not by Omar’s curse, though that didn’t make me happy, but by the venom in Amber’s words. As a Christian, I could understand being offended when the Lord’s name is thrown around that way, but I was infuriated by Amber’s response. Somehow, I found it hard to believe that she’d never sworn that way in the past, or at least been in the presence of other Christians who were saying it, all without reprimand.
In a Bible Belt state like Georgia, schools are flooded with students just like her, close minded and condemning of things they don’t understand, from faith to race to sexuality. It’s a terrible problem, one that from my experiences is the leading cause of bullying and depression. What’s worse, the kids that are the most guilty, ones like Amber, are perfectly kind, intelligent individuals that have simply never been exposed to any other point of view.
The thing that’s hard about correcting this, is that it goes so much deeper than just today’s youth. A snide comment in gym class is the same monster as slavery, dressed in a different costume. Prejudice has dwelled in the hearts of people of all ages for hundreds of years, and thought it’s been diminished, it is far from gone. We live in a society that ensures us all equals, but that security means nothing if we use it as an excuse to ignore what’s right under our noses. Merely speaking up seems a piddling remedy for such a large issue, but it’s the only thing that will prevent it from creeping up on us, slow and stealthy like it has in the past, and kicking us back into the Holocaust.
“I told him he could go to hell if he wanted to, but he was not gonna talk about my God that way,” Amber sneered, looking around her as if expecting approval.
I didn’t hang around to hear the response, but personally I was appalled. Not by Omar’s curse, though that didn’t make me happy, but by the venom in Amber’s words. As a Christian, I could understand being offended when the Lord’s name is thrown around that way, but I was infuriated by Amber’s response. Somehow, I found it hard to believe that she’d never sworn that way in the past, or at least been in the presence of other Christians who were saying it, all without reprimand.
In a Bible Belt state like Georgia, schools are flooded with students just like her, close minded and condemning of things they don’t understand, from faith to race to sexuality. It’s a terrible problem, one that from my experiences is the leading cause of bullying and depression. What’s worse, the kids that are the most guilty, ones like Amber, are perfectly kind, intelligent individuals that have simply never been exposed to any other point of view.
The thing that’s hard about correcting this, is that it goes so much deeper than just today’s youth. A snide comment in gym class is the same monster as slavery, dressed in a different costume. Prejudice has dwelled in the hearts of people of all ages for hundreds of years, and thought it’s been diminished, it is far from gone. We live in a society that ensures us all equals, but that security means nothing if we use it as an excuse to ignore what’s right under our noses. Merely speaking up seems a piddling remedy for such a large issue, but it’s the only thing that will prevent it from creeping up on us, slow and stealthy like it has in the past, and kicking us back into the Holocaust.