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Discrimination in Henry Louis Gates Jr.´s What´s in a Name? and ADHD

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Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s “What’s in a Name?” was an extremely emotional piece of literature. He wrote it to show people how hurt he was about his father, who was a well-respected man around his town, being called “George”. “George” was an infamous name that white people called all black people when they were discriminating against them. Gates hated that his father was put to a lower standard than he truly was by being called “George”. Like Gates, I hate discrimination. When I was younger, I was discriminated against just like Gates’ father was. I was discriminated against for being Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Discrimination can take a toll on you and can leave you ran down to a point where you do not know if you can …show more content…

They would sit at their desk on the phone with an outside of school call and talk about their “crazy” student. By the time I was in 8th grade, I had mostly learned to control my ADHD. I had stopped taking my medicine. I would still hear fellow classmates and a few teachers whisper about me behind my back. My few friends I had managed to collect and actually keep knew how to handle me when I got into my hyperactive modes. When I got into high school, I had a much rougher time with the bullying and finding friends. Everyone had grown up and matured while I was still back acting like an immature kid because my mind was in twenty different places all the time. No one knew how to handle someone that was hyperactive like I was. They tried to put me in special education because they all thought that I was not all there. They said that they were worried about me being around other students. They tried my whole freshman year and part of my sophomore year to put me in special ed classes because they said, “You are too slow in your classes. Your hyperness is a distraction and a disturbance. You are considered special ed because of your ADHD problem. You aren’t a normal student, you’re special.” By my junior year of high school, I had finally got the school to recognize me as a regular student and not as a slow student. I was able to in all my classes besides one class. I had that class every year of

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