Honestly, I haven't encountered many instances where I personally witnessed racism. Living in Carmel, Indiana as a typical white teenage girl I have grown up living as a majority.

The only memory that comes to mind is one that I briefly remember from middle school. I went to Orchard, a private, expensive, and predominately white school. Most of my friends were just like me and they lived with parents just like mine. Orchard had always emphasized the importance of diversity, but I never found it in the hallways of my school. We would spend hours reading about injustices, watching movies about rasicim, and discussing prejudices but never could I find a minority within my classmates. As I reached 5th, 6th, and 7th grade I gradually was surrounded with more cultural people. Not only black, but asian, indian, and middle eastern people as well. I felt like the years they spent drilling equality into our heads was actually being represented among our school now. But my respect for Orchard's efforts in creating a diverse community came crashing to a halt when I over heard a conversation between two important adults. They were talking about promotion material, and one person said that we needed to place a black person on the front. The other fired back " Why would we do that? The families who can pay the tuition and who will receive this brochure are not the people who value diversity. We need to approach them with the image of their child." The lady responded casually by agreeing and moved on about her afternoon.

Not to mention names, but these two individuals were role models within the community of Orchard and the audacity they demonstrated to even have this conversation, let alone in front of students, baffled me. Not only was the individual being racist she was also categorizing all the people who could afford to go to school at Orchard as racist too.