A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Youth / OPINION : Hamilton High School

MICHELLE TURLEY, Senior, 16

Our parents pass on (racism) to their children. That’s the problem. You can’t fix what the parents have already told the kids. But you need to bring education about different backgrounds into the school. There’s also not a lot of history from other nations being taught. (Black students) want to learn about Africa. (They) want to be considered that they’re not “less” than other people. The civil rights movement only happened recently. They want to be equal. They want identity and the way to do that is to know ancestral background.

It’s all centered on the U.S. That’s upsetting a to a lot of people--that it’s not shown as important. Everyone here did not originate in the United States.