"What's in a name?" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was an extremely emotional piece of literature. He wrote it to show people how hurt he was that his father, who was a very respected man in his town, was called "George". “George” was an infamous name that whites called all blacks when discriminating against them. Gates hated that his father was held to a lower standard than he actually 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 because I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Discrimination can have a negative impact on you and can leave you running to the point where you don't know if you can get back up. When I was in fourth grade, I was diagnosed with ADHD. All the kids thought of me as the girl with the mental illness. They ran around screaming, “Don't talk to her. His illness will contact you. I would sit in the corner with my best friend until she finally started to believe their rumors. I had never felt so alone and hurt in my young life. The prejudices of the kids were one of the many reasons why I changed schools. After changing schools, the torment did not cease. It actually increased rapidly. I was taking medicine to control my ADHD. It made me more isolated than it controlled my attention and hyperactivity. The children always laughed and pointed fingers at me when this was granted. They were talking behind my back saying, “She's a zombie girl. Don't go towards her." They would make these jokes until lunchtime, when the effects of the meds wore off, and then they would see a completely opposite side of me. When I got to middle school, my grades started to suffer... halfway through the paper..... activities with them and I have to tell them no because I haven't done my homework yet. They look at me like I'm crazy because I have a hard time paying attention while doing my homework start thinking more and start being more studious. People talk about how slow I am with homework. So I started working every day, when I have free time, on homework and just focusing on homework and nothing else so that the discrimination against my ADHD would go away. Gates' father was discriminated against because he was black and I was discriminated against because I had ADHD. Prejudicial words can hurt more than physical abuse. It takes a toll on the person going through the prejudice. It can change the way you relate to yourself and can make it difficult for the person to know who they really are. Prejudice is painful and cruel.