Oreo Girl Goes from Private to Public

From private to public...

From paying for tuition and striving with ambition

To going to school for free with kids who leave in the middle of class to walk to the store for a carton of tea

Educated teachers who were powerful school leaders, to teachers who are sometimes afraid to tell the kids to settle down when it gets much too loud

From kids who sat in the classroom for the full forty minutes, to kids who walked out in two... 

Going from "'Mrs. Johnson, can you come here and help me on number five"', "'May I go to the bathroom please?"', "Mr. Williams, I am confused" to now "'This too hard'" ''I ain't doing this crap"' and "'I'm goin to da bathroom"'

From "are" to "is", "them" to "dem", "be quiet" to "shut up", "no" to naw", "yes" to "yea".. See the difference?

Wearing uniforms to searching for ATLEAST an hour every night for a shirt, pants, shoes, and accesories because there is no dress code

Private school? Simple. Public School? Different. VERY DIFFERENT

Kids trying to fit in, dying to make friends, and lying their way through things

My nickname? Oreo. Definition? "A black girl on the outside a white girl on the inside" 

Never have been called that before until public school

"You talk white" HOW?

How can one talk white? Is it because of my proper speaking? Because I don't use slang or drag my words along? 

They know I am different. Some even tell me. Is it because how I was raised? 

Do they want me to be ashamed because I do not act like them? Are they jealous and just do not want to admit it? 

What is it really? I never went through this in private school

Being around kids who all act the same makes you think twice, like if you don't act like them they are going to pick on you

Like the crab in a barrel story, when one crab starts to get ahead of all the other crabs in the barrel, they all pull the crab back down, they want him to be down like them.

Sometimes that is how I felt, but I can't

I can not just change myself because of people around me who are not like me 

I am not going to change myself because I switched schools 

I am who I am. I am the young lady my grandma raised me to be

 

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