The Social Superiority Stigma

Many people live with stigmas attached to them by society and are easily judged immediately by everyone else because of it. I have had to deal with a stinging stigma throughout all of my schooling; I was consistently the outsider to most, and was simply labeled as "that white kid". Every grade school and  both high schools I went to about 90-95% of the population was made up of every other race and ethnicity and only a very small portion of students were the same color as myself, making me to be the only white kid in most of my classes. A lot of students liked to judge me based solely on this and would work to intimidate me or make me feel less than them because they all probably felt less than me most of their time. Having to deal with mostly white teachers, white police officers, and authority figures throughout the majority of your life makes everyone feel that there seems to be an unbalance when it comes to the color of your skin. The notion that white skinned people think that they are better or more educated than others is sadly prevalent in today's time, and when I meet people who like to look down on other races because they truly feel that they are smarter and more "proper" disgusts me but mostly just makes me sad to see the continuation of such stereotypes (I mean come on now grow up).

A lot of teachers and authority figures have also given me this "extra privilege" or "free pass" to behave differently than others in my classes or to not receive as harsh a punishment than the other kids ALL throughout my school days. For some reason people would like to treat me as separate than the rest because of who I appeared to be but now I am glad to finally be treated as equal in Year Up where we all receive the same amount of attention and resources. I plan to change the minds of youth about this stigma in my future and really get children to appreciate who they are and to not feel less than anybody else or put down by these seemingly powerful greedy white authority figures who are way better off than everybody else because they were treated as better and they took advantage of their position in society. Right now I'm guessing that this stigma is the residue of all the crazy history in this country and really it is up to all of our generation now and ahead of us to change our thinking around it and finally put an end to past and make our own history.