She looks up, my hand still in hers.
“Why do your hands look like a monkey’s?”
My jaw clenches, my eyes narrow, my head cocks to the right, and my grip on her hand tightens. Misinterpreting the growing tension, she looks down at our hands once more, looks me straight in the eye, and reiterates her previous statement.
“You know what I mean by ‘like a monkey’. Monkey’s palms are a lot lighter than their skin, and so are yours!”
In a split second, I snatch my hand away from hers, and run as fast as I can towards the stairwell. While running, I can hear gasps from my classmates, teachers telling me to come back, and apologies, all slowly blending into one. Rather than hearing the comments from these various individuals, I the racially insensitive comments that Katie has said to me this past school year inhabit my train of thought, one by one. Attempting to escape the room before the tears escape my eyes, I swiftly, yet carefully, place one foot in front of the other. Within a matter of seconds, I reach the stairwell door, push it open with all of my might, and sit in the small corner that’s opposing the stairs. The white walls of the stairwell begin to close in around me, making me feel more suffocated, helpless, and alone than ever.
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Everyday, my trip from home to school is more than a commute— it’s a transitional period. I have to take the time out of my day to accept that I’ll go from being with my family to with my friends; that I’ll go from being of the racial majority to the racial minority. Even after 4 years, this daily transition is tough for me— I’ve never been in a school that lacks so much diversity. A lot of the people that I go to school with are rarely faced with a race or culture that they are unfamiliar with, sadly justifying their perpetual ignorance. I try my best to put my peers first, and act in a way that makes them comfortable, even if I’m uncomfortable doing