Starkville High School has come a long way in the struggle to build race relations, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Senior Mike Brand believes that true racism is a reflection of the individual’s upbringing and parents’ beliefs.

“Someone was feeding them that negative energy towards black people,” Brand said.  “That’s just like somebody going to church. Say you have a Christian and a Buddhist. It’s really hard to tell a true Buddhist how he should live his life when he was raised his whole life in the Buddhist religion.”

Racism can and frequently does go both ways, however.

Junior Mitchell Linley experienced racism in middle school during his P.E. class.

“It was more like when we would start to play basketball and split up into teams, I would hear, ‘No, I don’t want him on my team, coach, he’s white,’” Linley said. “‘He can’t play basketball.’”

Linley silently dealt with the derogatory comments.

“I mean, I don’t agree with it, but I didn’t make a big deal about it,” Linley said. “I was just like okay.  I just kind of wasn’t given a chance to prove myself as a person instead of people judging.”

Many SHS students believe that self-segregation or de facto segregation is done by coincidence.

Many students may see it, but have not made an effort to change it. Personal comfort zones may be responsible for this.

However, there are some students that do not have the same feelings about race relations that Mitchell and many others do.

“I don’t see it,” junior Gabe Myles said.  “If I want to go sit with other people at lunch I could easily just do it without there being a problem.  In fact, I do it all the time.”