Racism can take place inside and outside the SLOHS commons. Photo courtesy of reporter Zach Wallace.

  San Luis Obispo High School is known to be an inclusive and safe space for students from multiple backgrounds and cultures. However, racism is still an uncivilized act that occurs in even civilized towns. Multiple newspaper issues by Expressions have tried to tackle the issue of racism head on in a professional manner, including the recent October paper.

  But despite SLOHS’s best efforts to thoroughly eliminate discrimination, it’s obviously impossible to live in a perfect society where no issues exist.

  “Racism is definitely an issue, even though there isn’t very much of it. Just that it is there at all is bad and I think it shouldn’t be,” said freshman Will Woffingdon.

  Approximately one in three high school students reported perceived racism during their lifetime, including two thirds of Asian and more than half of Black and multiracial students.

  Racism is a difficult issue to deal with, as many students find it hard to discuss many of the events throughout American and world history that have led to social dysfunction and the misunderstanding of basic human rights.  

  It’s also frequent for many to have subconscious racial tendencies, despite not being aware of it. Some might have racial biases even if they aren’t intentional or it’s not with malicious intent. Our culture has been built on racism for so long that it is baked into everyday events. We need to make a conscious effort to know these things are happening and to stop them from happening in the future.

  A majority of society is quickly changing to diffuse and reduce racism. If you look at history on a large scale, it has just recently become not socially acceptable to be racist. We are going in the correct direction, but we need to get there faster. It’s also going to get harder to reduce racism now as there are many small things instead of a few big issues. 

  “Honestly, I don’t know if racism can be stopped because it’s just kind of an unfortunate thing that still happens,” said freshman Timothy Seng.

  SLOHS is making important moves to try to prevent racism; there is no tolerance to racism and there are plenty of ways to report racially motivated acts of harm. Despite all of this, racism is still heard and felt around the campus.

  The only way for this to change is for students to truly realize how harmful racism is. If students realize their impact there would be less racist things said and more cases reported. This would heavily discourage harmful statements in the future. 

  “More awareness about racism would stop it, like calling it out if it’s seen,” said freshman Phoenix Gray.

  It’s important for Tigers to be aware of their words and to show respect to their peers.

Don’t be hateful, it’s not that hard!

Source: cdc.gov