Scars of Racism

Scars: something that shape you into who you are today; something I have many of. Yet the ones the most pronounced to me are the ones you cannot see.

 

Today I share my biggest scar with you. It was the first day of kindergarten. A day I will never forget, walking into my new class with my neon pink shoes and a smile on my face bright enough to light up a dark room. I found my cubby and sat down at a round table, one that merely resembled the kind you would see in the movies.

 

I hadn't thought about who I was sitting with as all the kids were new; I simply hoped they would be kind too. We all said our names and where we were from. I told them I was born in Africa but moved when I was adopted at nine months old. Some kids asked questions like, “Wait, so what colour are your parents,” or, “Is that why you're a weird colour?” yet I ignored them. Truly my only goal was to make friends.

 

When I heard the lunch bell ring, my body tingled and my insides felt jittery. I was so excited to experience my first-ever elementary school recess, yet it wasn’t as amazing as I would have hoped. Our teacher let us go out and we all sprinted off in different directions. I went to the biggest playground, one with monkey bars, that's when the jokes started. When you are five years old, you don’t think much about the colour of your skin or the way your hair looks, but all the Grade 6 and 7 students sure do. In the beginning it was subtle jokes such as, “Oh, you truly are so good at the monkey bars huh? You must have practice.”

 

I kept ignoring comments like these until eventually someone told me something I'll never forget. One of the oldest in our school, a 12-year-old boy, stepped up to me near the end of recess and told me, “Look around, little girl; you don’t look like anyone and you're too different to belong here. Why don't you do us a favour and go back to where you came from.” I ran away and hid behind a bleacher wall until the bell rang. When I walked back into the classroom, I saw everything differently. I noticed I was the only kid of a non-Caucasian or Asian colour; I saw that all the examples of kids on the wall were of a lighter skin tone than me.

 

When I went home I asked my mom why I was different, she explained that I was special and my colour was unique. Those words will stick with me for the rest of my life, but so will the ones of the Grade 7 boy.