Those who judge will never understand; and those who understand will never judge.
Back in primary school, one would have thought our lives were carefree and playful, but wait! Let me tell you the truth. I was in second grade and my classmates were already raving about boyfriends. All I could think about was school and the unfairness of teachers. I was a slow learner and was always the last one out of the class who finished; I stayed after school almost every afternoon. I’ll never understand how slow I was then and how much I’m flourishing today.

As I grew up there have been people coming in and out of my life, each time faster than the previous one. I’ve always thought I was the problem until I saw how society treated people. By now, most of the people my age should know that beauty does not define who we are; it is but a mere physical appearance of how God has created each of us uniquely. We live in a multi-cultured, diversified country and we, as citizens, should embrace one another’s differences, but instead we look down on each other and do the one thing that turns into hatred.
Where do you think xenophobia comes from? It is not a fear or an illness; it is the hatred of one being towards another. Why do you think it exists? We shouldn’t blame ourselves. No! We should blame the Apartheid era for judging people by race and classifying our brothers and sisters as inhuman.

So, let me continue where I have left off, because my story has not even started.

Unfortunately, there are countless people out there that are disliked because of race, religion, sexual orientation or disabilities. This problem needs to be diagnosed along with a workable solution. As I was proceeding on my journey to Grade 12, I crossed paths with an exchange student from Ghana. She was friendly and a pleasure to hang out with, yet a lot of children I grew up with were not as fond of the idea of me hanging out with her as I was.
Gradually I went up to them with full force and demanded an explanation for their snobbish attitude towards her. To my dismay, the answer I got was nothing out of the ordinary. They called her ‘the Ghana girl’, a walking dead. Pardon me for not wanting to mention anything further for I am still hurt for the heart and soul of another. For all I know they did not even get acquainted with her, but by merely looking at her appearance, they assumed she had a critical illness. And since then I have never exchanged another word with them. Judging a person does not define who they are; it’s a reflection of who you are. They did not know the choices she had had to make.

To prevent this from happening on the way forward we should educate our future, which will later result in a world without hatred. The commencement of organisations that teach people to treat each other equally and respectfully should participate. We should focus on the establishment of classes at schools that shows the diversity and distaste and how it plays a key role in society. We should teach our future generations that no humans are different from one another. Let us all grow together as one.