Diary Of Being The Only Brown Person In Class

"How does learning about this topic make you feel?" My social studies teacher asked.

I was confused because for one; I wasn't raising my hand and two, every head was turned towards me.

It was history class in the 8th grade and my teacher at the time was discussing the slave trade. A topic I hated learning about, because it just so happened that I was only ever the one colored person in the room.

"I don't know." I replied shallowly, my head slightly bent towards my desk.

I grew up in a number of towns.

My parents were divorced at the time and my mom had moved in with a man, soon-to-be my stepdad, just one state over. This resulted in a long and drawn out custody battle. Eventually, my siblings and I would accompany her to Wisconsin.

Our new home was massive. It sat on a popular lake in a wealthy community. At the time, I didn't know much about my mom's boyfriend but one thing for sure was that whatever he did, he did it well. He would even go on to help my mom start her own profitable business in the downtown.

For a moment, I was excited! I was even more excited to meet the kids in my new school district. For once, I finally felt comfortable inviting people over to my house.

But this town was different. It felt like 1,000 to 1 ratio in terms of cultural diversity. When word got around our school district of where we were living, I felt like each and every person judged us.

"How could they afford that?"

"She must only be with him for his money."

All of these thoughts consumed me with one single look. In a town with privilege and opportunity, I was confused why their was so much ignorance.

I continued to make friends and invite them over to our new home. Showing them all of the hidden rooms we had discovered when we first moved in. Some of them impressed and others not so much, I was naïve to think that I was the only one with a lake house. Many of the kids I went to school with had even bigger house!

Still, I had hoped that this would help when making friends. But it didn't. I was able to fit in materially, but I had a hard time connecting with my peers.

A lot of them asked me questions about my hair, what it feels to be a different race, or had zero filter sharing their thoughts on not being pretty because I'm a different color, my DNA is defective and that's why I have brown skin.

I didn't understand. I thought this would go away living here.

I had to try harder than most kids.

I believe this is when I decided to get more into sports. The harder I worked and challenged my body, the more I could escape from those negative comments.

When I stopped trying to impress my peers, the easier it became for me to make friends. I wasn't afraid of being friends with everyone, regardless of your clique. I didn't want to make someone else feel the way I had felt.

School was going well. My academics were average, but I was doing well nonetheless.

I was little more outspoken than most of my peers and enjoyed sharing my thoughts and opinions in class on certain topics. Especially in science, my favorite subject at the time.

I actually enjoyed history class too! But learning about a cultural topic from a person that has not had much cultural diversity never sat well with me. Not that I need a brown person to talk about brown experiences, but it helps if they have been well-travelled.

"It must make you feel something, right?" She persisted.

Thinking of a reply, I thought to myself "doesn't this only happen in the movies?"

"I'm not African American, but I imagine it would have felt much worse than I feel now with you having asked me that question." I replied snarkly.

I could tell that she was confused. In her mind she was 100% confident that I was in fact African American. Part of me doesn't blame her, she has probably only see a handful of minorities in this town anyway.

Her shoulders lowered and her face became relaxed. She redirected her attention back to the image of the slave in chains and attempted to connect it to our modern day version of slavery.

I folded my hands into one another and I stared at the edge of my desk. I was nervous to look up and see the eyes of 23 class members, so I kept my head down.

The bell rang.