It doesn’t take much thought for me to know that I was a very naive child.

I’ve never faced poverty and

I’ve never had divorced parents. I have never been in any kind of situation that would make a kid my age

genuinely upset. I grew up with both of my parents and my three other siblings in a wonderful home. I

have always lived in a predominantly white neighborhood. All my neighbors, except for two homes, are

Caucasian, but it’s never crossed my mind. When I was a little girl, I’d never thought about color. When I

looked at my neighbors, all I saw were people. Not black, not white, just... people. I always thought we

were the same, that there was no difference between us. I desperately wish the whole world could look

through the eyes of my younger self and other children’s, so that their views could be wiped clean of the

dirt that has formed over them after so many years of hate and profiling. I wish they could see how

wonderful it was to not judge another by their skin. But it was all one big facade that couldn’t hold itself

against the truth the world holds. My eyes were looking through rose colored glasses that needed to be

removed. I used think race didn’t matter and that everyone was equal, but I was wrong. After all, how was

I to survive in this world if I didn’t know my place as an African American girl? How was I supposed to

fit into a world where we are said to be ‘loud’ and ‘uneducated,’ not ‘well-spoken’ and ‘polite’? I hated

what people were saying about ‘race’ this and ‘color’ that. But soon enough, these ideas became a part of

me, and I was enlightened. I had to come to terms with it at some point in my fifteen years of life. It’s

knowledge that I gained after cumulative experiences throughout my life, some of which caused me to

start questioning everything around me.

I was in first grade when it all began, though I find it shocking that I can recall these things that have

occurred so long ago. My big brown eyes were bright with excitement, my red shirt and overalls hadn’t a

wrinkle in sight, and I had taken it upon myself to make the fashionable choice of pairing my grey and hot

pink tennis shoes with the already startling outfit. My wild hair had been tamed into two puffs on either

side of my head with those things I used to call ‘ball hair ties,’ since there wasn’t an actual name for

them, though they were essential to any African American girl’s hair accessory collection. I don’t

remember if it was the first day of school, but I do know that it was within the very few weeks of it,

considering that fact that I was still very excited to spend hours upon hours in that building. So there I
was, perfectly pressed overalls and all. I entered the classroom and hung my pink backpack in my

assigned cubby. I said a cheerful hello to Mrs. Horne before taking my seat in class. Everything was great,

I did my classwork, I ate a snack, I colored. Then recess rolled around. I of course, being the follower that

I used to be, went with the other little girls to the playground. Typically, we would play a round of tag, a

game that would frustrate competitive little me since a large majority of the girls there couldn’t run to

save their lives. Many of us rejected the idea so another girl proposed that we should play ‘House.’ We all

excitedly agreed and began picking who would play what role.

“I want to be the Mom,” one said.

“I’m the baby,” claimed another.

After some of the chatter subsided, I decided to put my input into the game.

“I’ll be the big sister,” I announced.

Everyone went quiet, when I said this, and it confused me. Moment’s later a girl who I remember not

being very fond of told me that I couldn’t be the big sister. I was a little firecracker back then, so of

course I questioned her with a why not? In all innocence, she explained to me that since I was brown,

there was no possible way I could be the big sister.

‘It wouldn’t make sense,’ I remember her saying.

I scanned all of the girls complexions that I was playing with, and registered the fact they were indeed all

white. I felt uncomfortable. I felt odd. Of course, a first grader doesn’t really contemplate something like

this for a long period of time, so I compromised and played as the “adopted” big sister. Many sessions of

House required me to be the adopted one, so it almost became routine for me to say that I was ‘adopted’

before anyone would tell me so.

Flash forward to an instance in seventh grade when I was making my way to the bus loop, exhausted and

ready to go home. It had been a long day, and seventh grade wasn’t exactly my favorite year of school

(girl drama and whatnot), so I was ready to head home as quickly as I could. A scrawny white boy came

up to me with his group of white friends trailing behind him. The boy, who’s height required me to look

downwards, opened his mouth and with his squeaky adolescent voice, asked me what my name was. He
proceeded to list, if you will, ghetto and stereotypical black girl names while his friends laughed like the

group of idiots that I assumed they were (I should probably apologize for the not-so-subtle insults in this

story, I’m just really trying to channel the energy that I had on that specific afternoon).

“Shaniqua, LaTasha?” He shouted at me until I was out of earshot.

Not in the mood for whatever this obviously sixth grade munchkin was doing, I continued the long walk

to the bus. I kept my eyes forward and my feet walking. I boarded the bus and went home, not batting an

eye at what had just occurred.

Though I’ve decided to take a lighter tone to my experiences, there have been plenty of other times where

I’ve heard racial slurs hurled at me by white kids. Teachers have heard it, but chose not to do anything.

There’s been a few times where I’ve been told I “speak well” for my race. When I questioned this remark,

I was told to be thankful for the compliment. I’ve seen Confederate flags and people yelling the N word in

my direction. I’ve been commented on about my appearance, like my lips, my nose, my hair. I might have

seemed nonchalant about a large majority of these things when they were said to my face, but over time it

started to take a toll on me. I wanted to talk to someone about this scary world I had stumbled upon, but

everyone had a tendency to change the subject or say something along the lines of “it can’t be that bad,”

which is a phrase I’ve heard from a counselor, believe it or not. I felt trapped and hopeless. With all of

these thoughts bottled up in my head and no one to spill them to, I began to hate myself. I hated my skin.

I would get my hair straightened as often as I could, I would try and purse my lips so that they would look

smaller. I wanted to be like those white girls I saw at the cafeteria, with their pale complexions and blue

eyes. Believing that color defined who you were, I would dress like them and act like them. If someone

mentioned my color, I would try harder. Saying things I never would, doing things that made me feel

strange and wrong. I grew so exhausted from this, that I would often sit in my bedroom and cry as three

words echoed in my head.

I hate myself.

The words grew louder and louder in my head until I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to hurt myself, as if

punishing my body would change my brown skin to the paleness that I desired.
I did everything I could to escape the idea that I was a part of a minority that wasn’t equal to the majority,

but nothing seemed to be working. With this realization, I finally began to accept myself over time. I dove

deeper into my culture, and I absolutely adore it. I’m doing much better now. I love my wild and

annoyingly knotty hair. I love my golden skin tone and the way it darkens in the summer to a rich brown.

I began to look around at those girls I used to envy years ago and I see them overlining their lips and

applying tanning lotion, as if getting three shades darker during the summer was normal. It makes me

laugh when I hear my white friends quote slang that I’ve heard from my black aunts and uncles when I

was young, like “period,” and “bae,” as if these terms are new and were served to them on a satin pillow.

Looking back at elementary to highschool, everything is going in a circle. Black culture is becoming the

“thing,” and being white is connotated in an awkward and somewhat insulting manner. All I can say to

this is, wow, how times have changed. I wish I could tell myself back then how the world is now. Of

course, not everything is perfect. There’s always going to be that one person who can’t seem to respect

another just because of their color or appearance, but if I could have avoided all of that pain and

exhaustion that plagued me, my days would have been filled with more bliss and happiness that I desired

when I pretended to be something that I wasn’t.