Throughout my four years of high school and just my overall education experience, I’ve always been an outspoken individual who didn’t feel the need to code-switch for anyone in any type of situation because I speak to almost everyone the exact same way. But growing up around faculty members and teachers who never necessarily replicated my identity made it hard throughout the years for teachers to actually understand me. For the first eight or so years of my life I had never gotten the experience of having a teacher of color. I never really thought much of this until I was in Middle School and started to realize the arrogance among some of my faculty members about the depiction of many students. In the midst of this realization, it was the start of covid so everything was blended learning, mask on 24/7, 6 ft apart social distancing at all times, constant reapplying of hand sanitizer, breakdown of internet connection, and so much more.

During this time of grief and worry I had gotten the privilege to do blended learning to continue my junior high education. I’m in 8th grade sitting in my history class with my teacher Mr Jacobs. It had so happened to be about three people’s birthdays in the classroom both online and in person. All these kids were to be notably recognized as black. Mr. Jacobs decided it would be a good idea to sing Happy Birthday to those students who were in the classroom to celebrate their turning of age during a rough time. We all started singing on the countdown from Mr Jacobs “ 1,2,3, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear…”we all chanted. By the end of the song Mr. Jacobs decided it would be appropriate to then state “ now it’s time for the Black Version… you guys all know the Black Version right?” he utters to the primarily black and Latino class. Me and my friends were shocked, everybody froze and no one knew what to say. We went from happily singing “Happy Birthday” to our classmates to being in utter shock with our White, green-eyed, Male history teacher. I could think of nothing to say but to just look at him in disbelief. Could there really have been a black version to sing Happy Birthday? Were we all just being sensitive? Was it honestly just a light-hearted joke? Class continued, the year went on and we all graduated.

I am now a high schooler. I entered my freshman year of high school seeing nothing but “colorful faces” and mass diversity of all different types of people. I felt represented and thought I could actually be heard and not be judged by the racial stereotypes of my skin. That was until December of 2023. My friend and I were speaking to a faculty member / teacher and were just having normal conversation. To really acknowledge the point of this story the teacher and I have known each other since summer orientation of my freshman year in high school. As for the relations with him and myfriend I am not sure of. Nonetheless we were standing in the middle of the hallway on the third floor near the history wing, having a regular conversation when suddenly my 6 foot 3, white, green-eyed dirty blonde cis-male teacher interrupted both my friend and I and told us verbatim“… You don’t have to talk like that in front of me, I’m not one of these teachers that’s going to get mad with you guys for simply talking the way you usually do. You guys can drop the act…”with a smile on his face and a condescending joyous tone behind his words. This appalled both my friend and I as we were both speaking regularly to this man. We were both very taken aback by his statement because to us it was very offensive. Neither me nor my friend code switch out of favor of anybody or any race and have shown that through our years of high school. So for him to present the idea that we were putting up some type of facade to please him or simply just because we were speaking with him, was appalling. In that moment I felt nothing but vulnerable to the idea that I could have possibly been code switching my entire life to please my opposite race counterparts just so I didn’t sound some type of way. I frantically went around to my friends and close faculty members asking them if they ever thought that when I would speak to them and when I would speak to my peers would it ever sound “different”. The census was no.

For the rest of December I did nothing but overthink how I spoke to my friends and how I spoke to my faculty members. Confused, I thought I was doing the right thing by now, code switching and changing the way I spoke with people. I felt different. I felt unusual. I was everything but myself. I then had to take a step back from the situation and look at the wider picture… my white teacher; in other words, told me and my black friend that the way we articulated our words was too well said for him that he thought we were putting up an act. The situation in the history wing, on the third floor, in the middle of the hallway kept replaying and replaying and replaying in my head from then on out. I never thought I would see the day that I would experience such an indirect stereotype. But then I had to remember, I am a black woman living in America, so of course, everyone assumes I speak a certain way, by looking at me without even speaking to me.

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