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Odgie Hayes Owens <br />St. Rose of Lima <br />Mr. Maro��ey <br />Honorable Mention <br />Hey Oreo Boy! <br />"Hey Oreo Boy," they'd say on the playground. Why did they call me that? Was that <br />because I loved chocolate? I was in third grade and I didn't think about it much, after all <br />there were Pokemonto capture as I hadn't yet discovered the excitement of skate <br />boarding, my latest fad. As I grew older the name Oreo Boy stuck as a nickname. I didn't <br />really get annoyed because I didn't know what it meant. One day a child in the school <br />hall called me "Oreo boy" and I smiled back. A teacher who overheard the comment took <br />us aside and said "Do you know what that means?" She informed us that Oreo Boy meant <br />a white kid who hangs out with only black kids. The teacher also said it was a racist term. <br />Holy buckets I thought, I'm in school and doesn't the Jurisdiction of Minnesota Human <br />Rights Act have as one of its Areas of Protection, education? Don't the Protected classes <br />include Race and Color? What does this mean for Oreo Boy? Could this be happening? I <br />did not know what racist meant for sure. I carried on not really caring about being called <br />"Oreo Boy". ARer all, I'm white and I only learned in school that racism was only <br />towards people who are not, you know Ruby Bridges, Martin Luther King, etc. <br />As the years went by the groups of kids would exclude me from many games. Soon <br />one of my friends pointed out that I was being excluded because of the type of people I <br />hung out with. (WHAT? Doesn't the Universal Declaration of Human Rights state in <br />Article 1: All human beings {isn't that me and my friends} are born free {can't we play <br />with whom ever we want?} and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with <br />