I was. But, my class was only 120 people and we didn't have football, though we did have cheerleaders. We had the conventionally popular, who did shit like student government and then the popular artistic kids. I was friends with both. If you stick out like a sore thumb (or in my case, like a drop of coffee in a bathtub full of cream) you can either own it or get run over by it.
I live in a demographic Antarctica. A Ghanaian friend of mine comes from a wealthy family of doctors, gets solid grades and wears wool sweaters. He gets called "the whitest black kid ever" and people constantly tell him he's "not really black." In 8th grade I heard someone say that in art class, so I took a small plastic baggie and filled it to the top in black paint, nestling it between the books in that asshole's designer leather backpack. Bell rings and he throws his stuff into his bag, looks down, yells, cries, and never says a word to me or my friend ever again.