It’s the official first day of school, and the stairs to the third floor of the new Juneau building are crowded. Mohamed Matali opens the doors to the new floor he will be learning on. He takes a look around, and sees lots of people, Caucasians, Asians, African-Americans and other races. He also sees that he is probably one of the only Africans at CHS. He doesn’t feel sad or scared; he is just trying to find ways to fit into this new school environment.

Being African, Matali has had a wide range of experiences at American Schools. He was born in Somalia, but moved to Kenya at age five. On July 7 2005 he came to Charlotte North Carolina and lived there for about two years. Matali’s first school in the U.S was called East Way Middle School in North Carolina. Matali had a positive experience at his middle school in North Carolina, describing the school as “ mixed” and the students and teachers as “nice”. After moving from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, Matali and his family moved to Milwaukee. And after going too two other high schools he finally came to CHS

Many people have experienced racism on a daily bases, and see it as a part of life. A senior at CHS named Ieshanoel Gavoni has experienced it many times. Her mother is French, Native American, and African American and her father is Asian and Indian. She said, “ I have been going to CHS for all of my High school years and people have made an amount of racial slurs. I’m not sure if a lot of it was intentional but I know a fair amount was sarcasm. Of course I’ve been called the overrated terrorist and stuff like that, I used to be offended by it, but now I’m just like your ignorant and lets move on.” Others are not so used to racism. “One of the High schools I went to was called Shanler High School in North Carolina. The people there weren’t so nice and lot of the black kids said stuff to piss me off. They said stuff like Africans walk naked and stuff like that. It made me really mad,” said Matali.

A few months ago on May 20, a family at White Water High school in Wisconsin was afraid to send their kids back to school after racist death threats were found on a bathroom stall naming 6 kids. The family said, “There are 12 African- American kids out of 1,264 at the school and six of the twelve names were written on the stall.”
Fortunately students think that CHS is not a racist school. “ Yes there are cliques that just hang out at this school, but we do get along with each other,” said a Junior at Community High named John Ankenbauer. Racism is a worldwide thing. It is in every city, state, and country. A question that is often asked is, “Is there a lot of racial diversity where I am?” Govani said, “MPS is very racially diverse because in them you get a bit of everyone from lots of different places.”

In a survey taken at CHS the student were asked the same question. 18.8% of the students replied that 0-25% of Milwaukee’s population is racist, 38.4% answered that 25-50% is racist, 30.4% answered that 50-75% are racist, and 12.5% of the students answered that 75-100% of Milwaukee’s population is racist.

In the survey the students were also asked if they are racist. 72.3% of the students said that they are never racist and that they love all people no matter how different they are. Yet at the same time the students said that 1 out of 2 people in Milwaukee are racist. There is obviously a problem. If no one claims they are racist, but 50% of the town is said to be racist then where is the problem coming from, how are we going to stop racism? Studies say that the best way to stop racism is to not be racist yourself, and by stopping others from being racist we can reduce it by influencing others to stop. Dr. Izzy Kalman, a
Nationally Certified School Psychologist said, “Racism can be stopped by using the golden rule: Do unto others as they would do unto you.”
Where Matali was growing up people treated each other the same way they wanted to be treated. “In Kenya there are no racist people. There are mostly Black people, but White people came to visit the place. They were good to us and we were good to them. We were all good.” According to Matali, he feels the same at CHS as he did in Kenya.

“People aren’t racist to me here, they treat me the same as everywhere else. Everyone knows I like this school, I like it very much! I know that people are racist and I still don’t trust the police,” said Mohammad Matali. Even though racism is everywhere, we can only prevent it by not being racist ourselves. Only then will our communities start to change.