In practice, however, Black members of the Oak Park community are still subject to overt and subtle forms of racism. And this disenfranchisement has seeped right into OPRF, where Black students are on the receiving end of microagressions and missed educational opportunities. For example: Deanna Paloian, the varsity cheerleading coach, has felt the need to toughen up her leadership style because most of her girls aren’t “shy” (as if cheerleaders ever are). But one of her white students recalled a conversation in which Paloian claimed that she needed to be more aggressive so that her mostly Black cheerleaders would respect her. And at the academic level, white students are improving their standardized test scores while Black students are not. “We are preparing our Black students to compete with their peers less well,” Amy Hill, Director of Assessment & Research at OPRF, says at one point during the premiere. These moments, which show that race impacts educational outcomes and that white people will use all kinds of creative, coded language to cover up their racial biases, are classic outcomes of racism that predate OPRF, not some hidden reality in America.