Shayne Cleeve, 14

Shayne Cleeve, 14

Well, a lot of times being white had its advantages, so to speak. I wasn’t really treated like a lesser being or anything out of the ordinary in schools or anywhere else. However, being a white girl did come with other disadvantages. I sometimes felt like I was looked down on a lot by coaches in sports. I felt like some saw me as some dainty white girl, and assumed I wasn’t that good at any of the sports I played. I felt underestimated, and it was frustrating because I would get placed on teams that were far worse than I was all because of the white girl stereotype. So I sometimes felt I had to work a lot harder in sports to actually show that I shouldn’t be tossed aside so quickly.