“There’s a kid in the hallway that sees me and says ‘Alabama wind chime.’ I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I Googled it and it’s the hanging of black people in Southern states,” said North Platte High School freshman CJ Griffin. The simple definition of racism is: poor treatment of or violence against people because of their race, or the belief that some races of people are better than others. Racism is often described as a learned trait, and according to Harvard University psychologist and racism and physical prejudice expert, Mahzarin Banaji, children as young as 3 accept racism and embrace it, even if they don’t understand “why”.

Hate groups have been on a steady rise since 2008, with the current number for 2015 at 882 active hate groups, according to The Southern Poverty Law Center. Just in Nebraska, we have five major hate groups; three fall under the category of Neo Nazis, one under Christian Identity, and the other under Black Separatist. Many people tend to turn a blind eye to big issues such as racism because, they don’t believe it is happening in their town or they haven’t experienced it for themselves. “I could be doing something regular and hear things like, ‘Oh he’s doing that because he’s black’,” said Griffin. Griffin says the comments bother him when they come from strangers, but you learn to ignore them.

NPHS senior Amelia Davis says she has never been discriminated against due to her race, but she has witnessed it. “At the glow dance, there were a lot of black kids being loud and having a great time. My date was annoyed, but instead of saying ‘I hate loud kids’, he said I hate [N-words],” said Davis. After the incident, Davis no longer spoke to her date. The recent rise of racist ideals has been attributed to Donald Trump acting as a platform for misconstrued facts. This has given people the idea that racism can be a societal norm. Trump has used his political campaign to introduce a plethora of people to hate speech and racist conspiracies, according to SPL.

“As the only Muslim kid here, you are singled out…but for the most part, North Platte has been very accepting of myself and my culture,” said junior Soha Vaziri. Vaziri recalls in her middle school years that a group of boys started an on-going joke that she carried a bazooka in her trapper keeper. “My teacher made them do a research project, and it ended there…I haven’t really had any other instances,” said Vaziri.

Vaziri says that education is the key to stifling racism. “We are all really one in the same. [Racist] haven’t met people from other cultures, so they just don’t understand because they haven’t experienced anything different yet.” Davis believes there are disadvantages to every race, but as a white person there aren’t as many. “When I’m walking down the street I won’t ever be stereotyped as a thug, or a thief, or terrorist, or someone’s baby mama. Regardless of what you believe, we are all humans, skin color doesn’t matter,” said Davis.