"A Place At The Table" Essay

Walking through the halls of Citrus High, I hear the conversation flow down the corridor. It isn't uncommon to hear students call eachother names that are offensive towards their race, followed by laughter. Having spent twelve years of my life living in New York, this still isn't something that I am used to hearing. I agree with Reina when she said, "We're not born prejudiced. It comes from our homes and families, how we're brought up."
When I lived in New York, I had friends of all different races. I am Jewish and my best friends consisted of an Italian, an African-American, and a girl that immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh when she was two years old. I never thought that racist people still existed today since I was brought up in such a diverse environment.
However, when I moved to Citrus County in 2006, I realized that I was wrong. On my first day of seventh grade at Inverness Middle School, I heard the "n-word" used for the first time. I asked my mother what it meant when I got home and I was shocked to find out that it was a racial slur against African-Americans. I couldn't understand by anyone would ever say such a mean thing about someone else, especially when that person hadn't done anything wrong to them.
It still amazes me to this day that people can say something derogatory to someone and then turn around and claim that they aren't racist. Since moving to Inverness three years ago, I have heard more inappropriate names for someone of another race than I ever thought could have possibly existed. I believe that the main reason that racism is so widely accepted in the south is how people are brought up. If someone has parents, siblings, or any other relatives that are racist, it is likely that they will become racist too, since they thing that it's okay.
In conclusion, I think that the way that people are brought up is one of the main reasons that they grow up to be racist. This is why I agree with Reina's quote, "We're not born prejudiced. It comes from our homes and families, how we're brought up."