Rural Public School Made Me Physically Sick
For a long time, I thought there must be something wrong with me.
I hated school. Every day, I hated it.
rible that I couldn’t eat. I had to wear suspenders to keep my pants up. Belts didn’t work. No matter how tight we pulled them, they always slid right off of me.
Sometimes, I vomited in class. The smell of food at the cafeteria was nauseating. It didn’t help that every kid chewed with his mouth open, or spit on the floor, or did all kinds of other disgusting things.
On most days, I waited until the lunch ladies weren’t looking and I tossed my uneaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the garbage. If there was nothing in my belly there was nothing I could throw up. That meant that nobody would scream at me.
We sat in classes with conservative teachers preaching conservative values. We discussed the white history of America. We were lectured on the importance of respect, even as the teachers did everything they could to humiliate us on a daily basis.
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