Standing in the aisles of an Oklahoma City Walmart is where Destyni Williams first encountered racial injustice. There, Destyni watched as two white security guards followed two African-American teens across the store, profiling them as shoplifters. She could not look away.
Destyni’s parents always told her she was amazing and taught her never to fear judgment. “It was easy to try new things without being afraid of the answer,” she said. They also told her that she would have to fight twice as hard for what she wanted because of the color of her skin and because of her gender. She heard their words but she’d grown up in mostly white communities and never faced racism directly. She’d never understood or believed them until that moment at Walmart.
“It’s crazy that I was so blissfully ignorant to the racism,” Destyni said. “I just never had to experience that (racism), so I didn’t believe that it could actually be true.”
Destyni not only realized that what her parents said may be true, she also realized that her plans to reach for a career in journalism – a field dominated by white men – could be more challenging than she’d imagined.
Not long after, Destyni faced another tough realization.
Yearbook helped Destyni discover her passion for writing and journalism as an eighth-grader. She then joined the yearbook staff at Edmond Santa Fe High School as a freshman and found community and support as she navigated the challenging transition from middle to high school. She fell in love with yearbook and, for a time, it completely shaped her life.
But that changed during her junior year when Destyni decided that yearbook had changed. Yearbook had been a place where she could surround herself with people like herself, a place where she belonged. Now that safe space was becoming infected with rumor-spreading and high school drama. Her love of yearbook slowly died, replaced with a deeper understanding of her values.
“Yearbook does not define me, but it showed me how much I value things like honesty.” she said.
The combined experiences of encountering race-based discrimination and newsroom drama were rude awakenings for Destyni but she remains determined to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional writer and to make her own way in the world no matter how she is judged.
She credits her parents for preparing her with a strong family connection, high expectations and teaching her the importance of honesty.
