Bad, bad, bad.

Discrimination. Everybody has witnessed discrimination in one way or another at different points in their lifes, whether they hear about acts or witness them. It can be found in history books, on playgrounds, in work buildings, and just about everywhere. I was ten years old when I first found out about discrimination, and how bad it was.
My first few years of school I spent at a catholic school where I met the best of friends you could have at ten years old. Our days consisted of the usual school subjects along with lunch and recess. By the middle of the school year everybody had become friends and had that one person in class who was their ultimate best friend everybody except a new girl who had just moved schools and was now in our class. She sat alone in class, at lunch, and played alone at recess. Everybody tried getting her to play and talk, but she wouldn't she was to shy but soon everyone's lives continued happily laughing with friends as she sat alone being known as the "weird girl". One day after school my mother picked me up from school and asked the one question everybody asks, "How was school?" That's how my ten year old self told  the story of the weird girl who sits alone, and plays alone. My mother scolded me immediately and told me that was no way to treat someone, to call them weird because they didn't like speaking and that's when she told me the common phrase- never judge a book by its cover. I didn't understand what she had meant at the time, and she didn't bother elaborating on the subject instead switching topics to safer grounds leaving me to ponder that. Two weeks later the little girl had moved away for reasons unknown and I told my mother as soon as she picked me up from school. That's when I found out the true meaning to the phrase. When my mom was little she had a boy in her grade who always sat alone and didn't speak much like the little girl I had known. His name was James. James came into class with baggy clothes and didn't eat at lunch time, he just sat at a corner of the table and read and wrote. Everybody made fun of him calling him different and hurtful names everyday just because he wore different clothes and did different things. For weeks the kids terrorized the boy but he didn't acknowledge them, just ignored them and continued on with his reading or writing. One day, he didn't come to school. No questions were asked. He didn't show up the following day, or the day after. Still, nobody seemed to notice. Then, when people were starting to question his dissappearance he came to school. Sporting a black eye, and a bright white cast he strut into the room still wearing his usual baggy clothes. Everybody stared at him as he made his way to his seat, which the  teacher made him evacuate as soon as he sat down. He was sent to the office where he didn't return from. The following day he didn't show up to class, nor did he show up the rest of the week. One day, during a math lesson a little girl who sat behind James asked the teacher if she knew where he was. Sighing, the teacher put away her book away and instructed the students do the same. She sat down in her large seat at the front of the room and began her story of the little boy. James has been living in a horrendous living condition. His mother left him and his little sister in the care of their father who had been an alchoholic and had been abusing them for a year. His father didn't bother buying him or his sister new clothes because he'd rather have money for the next drink he'd get which is why James wore baggy clothes. She explained how he and his little sister had been takin and put into foster care. After hearing my mother tell me his story I felt terrible. He had a terrible home life and the one place he thought he could get away from the abuse turned out to be another place he would recieve it. I was sickened with what the children did to him. They were discriminating him because of his looks, they never bothered to get to know him. Underneath the baggy clothes and the bruises most likely lay a good heart, but nobody will never know.