Having an ‘Attitude’

I went to small evangelical Christian schools that were extremely conservative and mostly white. In many of my classes I was the only black person. On many occasions I was kicked out of classes for “rolling my eyes” or “having an attitude.” I never understood why this was happening, because I wasn’t trying to be disruptive. I got straight-A’s, but still my teachers didn’t believe me when I tried to tell them that I was not purposefully trying to be negative in class. I honestly never thought that it could be the result of a bias until reading other people’s stories about similar situations.