“Chill, I was just joking.”

“Why can’t you take a joke?”

“No offense, but…”

These phrases echo through high school hallways more often than we’d like to admit. For many students of color, they are not harmless jokes. They are reminders that prejudice is not always outright, sometimes it hides behind laughter.

According to a study of 2,490 adolescents (51% African American, 31.4% Hispanic, and 17.8% White), nearly three out of four students (73%) reported experiencing racial or ethnic discrimination. These everyday remarks, often dismissed as humor, show the quiet persistence of racism in spaces that claim to be inclusive.

Microaggressions are defined as indirect discrimination against racial and cultural groups. But how can discrimination ever be “micro”? The word itself softens the impact of harmful behavior, allowing people to excuse their disrespect with a casual, “I didn’t mean it.”

The Nest is not immune to this. It prides itself on diversity and community, yet often ignores the casual racism hidden in jokes, comments, and cliques. Students proudly celebrate culture in one breath, then mock another student’s name, accent, or appearance in the next.

Even though the Redhawks student body is incredibly diverse, many students still group themselves by similar backgrounds. While that might seem harmless, it often creates invisible walls between communities. Those walls lead to stereotypes and disrespect, as students target one another with racially charged remarks, forgetting that they share the same hallways, classrooms, and streets.

What’s worse is that these moments rarely face real consequences. Administrators, teachers, and parents often dismiss the behavior as harmless teasing. The phrase “kids will be kids” has become a shield that protects ignorance and allows subtle racism to grow unchecked.

By minimizing these experiences, schools fail both the victims and the perpetrators leaving students uninformed, unempathetic, and unable to understand the impact of their words.