By Raedean Foote, Youth Frontiers School Relations Representative
“If a child grows up never seeing themselves represented [in the media] as successful or as the hero, then they are the anomaly if they succeed and the expectation if they fail.” – Yara Shahidi
By this standard, society definitely expected that I would fail. To start, I was born to an unwed white mother and a black father, and in the early 80s, being racially mixed didn’t feel “normal.” Aside from my brother, it’s hard to recall other multiracial children in my neighborhood, classroom or even at the grocery store – forget about seeing someone on TV who had the same shade of skin as I did. I grew up in a single-parent household, in subsidized housing, and in the free-and-reduced lunch program. As a kid with my background, it was hard to identify with those society portrayed as successful.
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Stack trace:
#0 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-content/themes/stockholm/includes/shortcodes/shortcodes.php(3525): qode_addslashes('Greater expecta...')
#1 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/shortcodes.php(433): social_share(Array, '', 'social_share')
#2 [internal function]: do_shortcode_tag(Array)
#3 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/shortcodes.php(273): preg_replace_callback('/\\[(\\[?)(social...', 'do_shortcode_ta...', '[social_share]')
#4 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-content/themes/stockholm/templates/blog/blog_large_image-loop.php(402): do_shortcode('[social_share]')
#5 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/template.php(812): require('/home/youthf11/...')
#6 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/template.php(745): load_template('/home/youthf11/...', false, Array)
#7 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/general-template.php(206): locate_template(Array, true, false, Array)
#8 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-content/themes/stockholm/templates/blog/blog-structure.php(82): get_template_part('templates/blog/...', 'loop')
#9 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/template.php(812): require('/home/youthf11/...')
#10 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/template.php(745): load_template('/home/youthf11/...', false, Array)
#11 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/general-template.php(206): locate_template(Array, true, false, Array)
#12 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-content/themes/stockholm/category.php(29): get_template_part('templates/blog/...', 'structure')
#13 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('/home/youthf11/...')
#14 /home/youthf11/public_html/wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('/home/youthf11/...')
#15 /home/youthf11/public_html/index.php(17): require('/home/youthf11/...')
#16 {main}
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