Tar baby, chee-chee, gringo, tinker, ginzo, shyster, and Yank. Each of these words has something in common: they can all be used in a derogatory sense to make fun of someone because of his or her race or ethnicity, and they can all be used to incite feelings of anger or hatred. Each word can be considered racist.

“[‘Racism’] is just a word, but it has scary connotations,” said senior Jordan Collier, whose mother is Caucasian and father is African-American.

Racism has been around as long as the idea of “race” has. When the first Europeans came across Africa, they immediately thought themselves superior to the people because the Africans were different than the Europeans. The Africans had different customs, clothing, and were less technologically developed. Thus, the idea of “race” began, along with the idea of racism itself.

Despite the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, racism is still a problem in America today, 40 years later.

Racism in America is still a problem today, “but nobody wants to really admit it,” said Collier. “We want to believe we have overcome that problem and we’ve tried to shove it behind us. I was walking around MSU with some friends and a man wearing headphones walked past us and said, ‘We don’t want n*****s here,’ and he spit towards me.”

While an incident like Collier’s may surprise some people, it may not surprise others. Racism is still a major factor in today’s society.

“I am mixed and when I date someone, I have to make sure their parents are not racist and are okay with it,” said junior Jordan Evans, whose parents are of different races. “My own grandfather [who is white] is racist and has disowned my mom. I have never met him myself.”

Evans says that students at ERHS are also affected by the racism that occurs at school.

“A lot of jokes go around that are racist to minorities… People here at school will make racist remarks about my race that are meant to hurt me,” said Evans. “[I don’t see] extreme racism, but enough to make a racist joke or term. Whenever something about black people is brought up, people will snicker and point at me.”

At the time of the Civil Rights Movement and earlier, African-Americans were considered nothing more than second-class citizens and, during the times of slavery, were seen as even less than that. Some students at ERHS believe that African-Americans aren’t the only group affected by racism.

“I don’t think [racism] has ever been exclusive,” said Collier. “If you were different, you would be treated differently.”

Evans agrees with Collier, saying that racism isn’t exclusive to one group of people.

“I believe people think racism is just against black people because it happens so much more to black Americans,” he said. “Mexicans, Latinos, and Asians get treated badly at times, too… [And] because of the war in Iraq, Middle-Easterners are always being discriminated against. Some people are sent to jail or Guantanamo Bay just because of their race and it’s not fair.”

One student that has been discriminated against because of her ethnicity, and not her skin color, is senior Julia DuBois. She came to America from the Ukraine in 1997, when she was just seven years old. She says that her first experiences in a new country were not the most pleasant, as classmates and other people saw her as being different.

“The duration of my first two years in America, I had the horror of experiencing my first, and worst, brush with racism of any sort,” said DuBois. “At school I was ostracized amongst my classmates because I spoke with an accent and dressed differently than they did. My mother and I received rude stares when caught talking in Russian in public, or passersby would whisper racial slurs under their breath.”

Even though she has been in America for 10 years, DuBois says that ERHS is in no way exempt from racism today.

“I still experience racism, even on such a maturity level as high-schoolers,” she said. “I can’t recall the number of times someone has thought that a joke about my ethnicity was funny.”

Jeff Dassance, athletic director and former assistant principal at ERHS, says that racism is not tolerated at the high school and can result in punishment up to suspension or even expulsion. DuBois says that punishments like this will not stop or solve racism in any way and, in fact, the country is not as tolerant as people would like to believe.

“America has managed to come a long way in its acceptance of multifarious cultures, but I truly feel America is a long way off from completely fixing the problem,” said DuBois. “Until this country learns to accept people as merely that – people – and until we can live in an era where racial slurs aren’t even remembered, we cannot call America understanding. We cannot dare to call America accepting.”