I remember the day specifically. I was in summer school in Manchester, MO. going into my freshman year of high school. We were having a snack break, and I had seen my dad. Now most teenagers get worried and a little scared when their parents show up during school without telling them. So, I did the normal thing and followed him. We made our way to the counselling loft and I was expecting to see the my Councillor Mrs. Morgan, but we didn’t. We walked right past her office. Standing outside of his office, a tall, light African American man introduced himself as Mr. Williams. After the introductions, I sat down next to my father, and all I could think about was that I was happy to be missing the boring Intro to High School class my mom signed me up for.

He clicked around on his computer for a couple of minutes before pulling up a file with my name on it. He told the grades that I had in 8th Grade. I didn’t understand why he was doing that, I was literally  in 8th grade that time last month. He then pulled up the grades from 7th grade, then 6th, and all the way back until 3rd grade. He continued to put emphasis on my English and Social Studies grades. I didn’t understand why he was doing it, and I honestly didn’t care. I was missing class just to sit in a man’s office and talk about my good grades. But it was only the beginning.

“Did your 8th grade English and Social Studies teachers tell you about the Honors classes? (what would be called AP here at my school)” he had asked. I simply nodded. he then had asked “Did you ever take the test to be put in the  Honors classes?” I shook my head at this. “Why not?”  “ Why get a C in a honors class when I can get an A in a normal class?” I replied. It was my motto whenever someone would ask me to be in an Honors classes. The truth was that I had given thought into the Social Studies classes, but there were certain skills that I had not learned, let alone mastered so I decided not to. “Would you like to be added to the Honors classes? You wouldn’t have to take the tests or anything, the only thing that you would have to do is the summer reading that is required for the English class.” he had said. It was then understood the point of looking at my grades, but all I could ask him was “Why me? Why do I get to skip the tests?” “Well, there aren’t a lot of African American girls enrolled in the class, so I would like to put you in there because you have had either A’s or B’s most of the years in those two subjects.” My father said that he would talk to my mom about it, and that he would let him know by tomorrow. Then we left.

I was appalled, I was shocked, I was speechless, and it takes a lot to make me speechless. The councilor hadn’t said it in those exact words, but that was basically what he meant. Never had that happened in my life, where I was given an unfair advantage because of my skin color. Yes, I was used to racism, and I cringed whenever we got into too much detail about slavery and segregation; I was honestly used to it all. I didn’t think I was deserving of it. My friend and one of the smartest people I knew spent weeks and weeks studying, and had barely passed one of the test. Me? I just got to skip all of that! No matter how much time my parents talked about it, it still felt unfair to me. Would it have been a lot more fair if I took the test like everyone else had? Yes. Did that end up happening like that? No. Still to this day, whenever I think about the whole ordeal, I can’t help but question: Would I have been given the same opportunity if I was born  Caucasian?