Sticks and Stones

In class today what some of my fellow classmates were saying pissed me off. I have a white mother and a balck father and he also is part Blackfoot Indian.So today when my classmates were trying to distinguish if Twyla and Roberta were white or black, I didnt say anything because I was thinking about the list we made up on the board- I have white cousins have bad grades and drop out of school, my older sister who is full black is married, has a job, and a son,  and my father is extremely successful, so i didnt know why some of the people in the class were trying to distingish who was black and white with those characteristics. In class you asked what do you think it would be like to be disliked becasue of you skin color and my answer is that it is hell! i know that I am only half but in soiciety I am classified as black. I never really realized racism while i was in elementry school because the children were so inoccent, but in junior high is when I started hearing the stereotypes with the watermelon, kool-aid, and the chicken, and if i heard them I would tell them that they are completley wrong, first I dont like watermelon, second kool-aid isnt a daily drink, and third who the hell doesnt like chicken its not just black people, but as i would try and clear up the stereotypes as much as i could i would just get the ignorant people yelling Nigger at me. That would always start a fight between me and whoever happened to yell it, which happened very often. Well my dad was very good at telling me that living in South Dakota this shit is going to happen, we only stayed in South Dakota because of my dads job, people are going to judge me because of my skin color all day, everyday and there is nothing I can do about it, he always told me sticks and stone hints why I got it tattooed on my body, he also told me that if people are going to be ignorant then prove them wrong in everything I do so as I got older I was the best at everything I did and i got respect and nobody yelled Nigger at me anymore. My senior year in high school i had to transfer to another school , a smaller school, and there happened to be about 3 or 4 very racist people and as soon as they say me walking around the school they immediatly thought of the word Nigger, thats the first thing that came to mind for them and i just thought of sticks and stones but the next day they all had Confederate flags hanging from their vehicles, I asked them if they knew the meaning of the word Nigger or even the meaning of the Confederate flag , and the ignorant dumb asses didnt know the meaning. So I just went on with my life and after that day they didnt say anything to me the rest of my senior year, and now my 2 younger sisters go to that school and I am going to have to teach them sticks and stones, and that they just need to keep their head up and be the best they can be.