how was your experience? where there racial overtone trying to get educated?
how was it being a black kid in school? only one?
I was one of the only two black males graduating in my class of 64 kids!
There were about 9 black girls...
There weren't many black people but we were sizable for a school of 400 students. We had about
20% black,
15% asian and middle eastern, 20% hispanic and about 55% white. Majority of the black kids were in the lower grades and a lot of them tend to transferred to another high school or moved(I'm near a military base).
We had a lot of kids that couldn't afford private but still wanted a decent education. Also there were kids that had rich parents who were doctors and lawyers who didn't find the private schools to be worth the money. Even though our school was classical(had to wear uniforms that consisted of khakis and a polo shirt. It was college prep based) it was public so it was free and since there were no buses, you had to catch a ride to school to get there. Anybody that wanted to make the drive could go there up until the 400 student cap.
A good chunk of the private schools anyway were evangelical christian and we had a sizable amount of muslim students, mormon kids, jehovah witnesses, atheist, etc who didn't want their children going to an evangelical christian school but still wanted a high quality education.
It wasn't bad.
Our principal was a old, white guy who was a democrat, upper middle class, and he made sure nothing happened or any lines got crossed.
He was hella cool, looked and acted exactly like
Bill Clinton.
The only people who didn't like him were the bad ass skateboard/metalhead white kids who were always starting trouble. He voted for Obama and knew a strange amount about contemporary pop culture for someone his age.
A lot of the teachers were republicans surprisingly(prob 60-70%), and probably 3/4ths were white, 70% female but majority of them were good teachers.
A lot of them were cool as hell and we had all age ranges and every teacher was a unique character. Since the school is near a military base, the school was constantly rotating teachers due to spouses transferring and it allowed a breath of fresh air while some anchored at our school and did amazing things with their classroom.
Surprisingly the worse teachers I experienced were the hardcore redneck/paula deen older white ladies. One of them looked EXACTLY like Reese Witherspoon, had a heavy southern accent and was a trophy wife to a rich, high ranking husband in the military who was condescending on the "Everybody Hates Chris" teacher level. She was a hardcore republican which made the condescension worse. Luckily her husband transferred and she left with him.
The other teachers were so fun, good at what they did and cool that I can't fault them for the dikkhead 1%.
Our school was clique heavy but luckily it wasn't along any racial lines and more akin to stereotypes(If you were a nerd, you hung out with nerds regardless of race, anime kids hung out, jocks all hung out regardless of race, skateboard kids all hung out, drama filled party animals partied together(and knocked each other up and did trains after drunken stupors), rich preps all hung out together, stoners cliqued together, etc)
Due to all of this we surprisingly had a lot of interracial dating at our school(about 25% of all dating) and we had a ton of biracial students too. It was nice that people got along so well surprisingly.
I know this post was long but it was a good experience and I would do it again if I got the chance. Even though the redneck and Paula Deen type teachers had an "outdated" view of black people, it was all good and the bad teachers typically didn't stay any longer than 2 years max. I found my college to be a lot more racially segregated than my high school ever was. If I ever do stay in my town for the rest of my life after graduation, I will send my kids to my high school if I can't get into the good high schools. (Our city alone has 19 high schools and only about 4-5 of them are of a good/high quality and public)