Ukrainian Refugee Shares How She Was Bullied By Her Teacher And Classmates At A U.S. High School—And People Are Outraged

Even though it's 2026, racism is alive and well, and so are xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and other microaggressions.

TikToker @shape_shifter01 is sharing her experiences as a high school student and a Ukrainian refugee. She moved to the United States four years ago in response to the war between her home country and Russia.

Since arriving in the United States, she unfortunately has not been welcomed with open arms or encouraged while going through the many struggles of being a child of war and a refugee.

Rather, she experienced many microaggressions by her classmates, as well as one of her teachers.

For example, in her English class, her teacher instructed them to "double space" their upcoming essay, which American students understand means to double-space the lines and space between paragraphs in the margin settings on their word processing program of choice.

Coming from Ukraine, the TikToker wasn't used to writing essays to demonstrate her knowledge, and she'd never heard "double spacing" as a requirement before. In response, she diligently included two spaces in between every single word in her essay, only for her teacher to mock her in class and continue to use that example as an "inside joke" with the students throughout the rest of the school year.

But the worst example came from a classmate.

The TikToker had just received terrible news that morning of a family member back in Ukraine who had been injured and would need surgery, so she was understandably in no mood for drama.

Then a classmate got her attention and asked:

"Are any of your relatives dead yet?"

That student burst out laughing, but one of her friends, realizing the joke had gone too far, was quick to apologize.

You can watch the video here:

Viewers of the video were disgusted on their fellow TikToker's behalf for dealing with such extreme bullying.

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It's easy to say that white people can not experience racism, but that does not mean that they cannot experience other forms of bigotry, like xenophobia, which is commonly experienced by Slavic and Balkan individuals.

It seems that TikToker @shape_shifter01 might have been in a school with—or was at least being targeted by—a group of students who sided with Russia over Ukraine and perhaps even have right-wing ideals.

Either way, their behavior was not okay.