“Are you a terrorist?” Students in my middle school classes used to ask me. My face got red, and I got angry. I got up and went outside. They started telling me bad words. They also called me names. After I heard those words, I didn’t want to go back to school. I told my teacher and she talked to that person, but nothing happened. My parents couldn’t do anything because they didn’t speak English. After this happened my friend came and asked me, “What happened?” I told him that I didn’t like being called a terrorist. I didn’t like this because I felt it was unfair for someone to judge me if he doesn’t know me. He was teasing me by calling me terrorist, and it made me feel small.

I went back in and started talking with that person. I told him how I felt. He said, “I didn’t mean like you are a terrorist. I didn’t want to make you mad; I just asked you a question.” When he told me he was asking a question, I felt calm. I still had that sad feeling though. I got into a very long daydream. I was thinking, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was thinking about why people don’t respect each other. My daydream was about people who don’t care about others. We are all human beings; we are all the same. I was at lunch when that person came up and asked me, “Do you want to play basketball with us?”

Now I’m in high school, and I can see all the judging of others here too. For example, I see students judging each other for their skin color. I got judged because of where I came from. I heard some students getting teased because they’re immigrants.

I joined a wonderful club named Finding Voice. I’m learning how to change the negative minds. Negative minds mean when people think about some things which are not nice. We need to change negative minds so that other people can live better. It’s very important to change them so the world will be full of peace. Do you want to know how? We are making plays about discrimination and racism. We are inviting students to our play. We also have some people facilitating activities and discussions to try to make some changes in others. In our group, we need to lead people in a right way to help them to talk to each other and feel comfortable. We want everyone to change themselves and their friends too. Our job is to bring goodness between people and take all the judging and racism away from them.

Sometimes I ask myself, “Do I judge someone?” Well, I think yes, but I also got judged by others so I understand how it feels. I started judging when I was in middle school. I teased a student by accident, calling him a word that I didn’t know the meaning of. He got mad and told the office. When I went to the office, they told me they were going to call my parents and I told them I didn’t know what that word meant. They started talking to me about that word. When I understood what it meant, I was so sorry. I told that person, “I’m sorry” and he said, “It’s ok.” After that day, we became best friends and never called each other bad names again. I understand that before you judge someone you need to get to know them first.

That’s why I joined this club to fix all these problems. Going to school and making fun of other students is not going to make you succeed. But if you don’t make fun of other students, you are going to make more friends and concentrate on your path to success. Having good friends can help you with a lot of things: like doing homework, making projects, having some fun. That’s how some people live in this world.