For the past few days, my social studies class has procrastinated doing worksheets by sucking our teacher into conversations. And I am sure I am learning more from these conversations than any worksheet in the world.

We are learning about the civil rights movement right now. Our teacher began by asking us, a predominantly white honors class, how we would feel during this time period as a black...and as a white. Everyone cringed. We'd feel awkward, we said, guilty, uncomfortable. She asked us; what if we were raised that way? No one could answer.

She showed us a black-and-white picture of two schools. One was small with a group of black school children out front. The other was large and had well-kept lawns. We looked at the first one. Tell me what this is, she said. It's an old black school, someone yelled out. We talked about it awhile. We looked at the other one. And that's an old white school, someone else yelled. "How do you know?" Our teacher said, "There's no sign, no white children..."

"Well, we assumed..."We all started. We assumed.

For these past two days, that has been the basis for our conversations. We assume. But usually the assumptions we named were ones that we assumed others assumed about us.

Things That We Think Others Assume About Us

-That whites are rich, in all honors, and kind of snotty

-That blacks are rude

-That if your in an honors class (especially if you're black), you're a nerd

-That only blacks have problems at home

-All blacks are 'ghetto'

"Ghetto?" Our teacher asked, "Define 'ghetto'". No one said it was coming from a certain place or a background. Everything that was said was about appearance and actions. So different from the original use of the word.

"Wearing your pants on the ground." Someone said. 

"I wear my pants on the ground," a boy pointed out, "and I'm white."

"Drinking Kool-Aid," someone else yelled. 

"White kids can't drink Kool-Aid?" Our teacher laughed. We all laughed at the absurdity of it. There wasn't really a difference. And yet, if one of the white boys went up to someone and said "Yo, wasup homie", they'd automatically be told, "You're way too white." 

Even the vocabulary, though, is not all that different. Beast, cool, legit, sweet, 'sup...everyone uses them; blacks, whites, and hispanics.

As for whites being rich and snotty; yes, most of the whites at our school are from families with larger incomes, but it isn't as if anyone is proud of it. At one point the student who was talking about that very stereotype named a street with very large houses on it. Another kid, who lives on that street hid under the table. Money is not flaunted at our school.

And here's the other interesting thing. We all assume others assume things about us, but no one said they actually assume something about other people. 

So, do we assume and just aren't telling, or are we assuming without even realizing it? Or are we stuck in a tangle of imaginary assumptions of other people's assumptions? 

But isn't incredible we can all talk about it?