These kids, some of them would just stare. Some of them will stare at me and I was like, “Why are they looking at me? Something wrong with my teeth? What’s going on?” Some of them, like, when I’m walking in the hallway, they literally, like, would walk far away from me or try to go the opposite direction. They avoid getting close to me.
And some of them will come to me and ask to touch my skin, saying things like “Can it cover? Can it come off?” I’m like “What come off? What are you talking about?” I was so confused. They would just make fun of me. Sometimes they would laugh at me.
At lunch, I would sit and then they would be on the table next to me, talking about me really loud, laughing. Some of them would go, “Shit! [she’s] the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. You look like a monkey.”
So that was every day, from 7th grade until 8th grade. I would come home and I would just cry.
And I would always tell my mom that, because of my skin, because I’m black, they see my black as ugly. My mother would say, “What? That doesn’t make sense. You are mild black. Why are you crying? Those kids are not making fun of you because you’re black.”
And I’m like, “I don’t know. They think my black is ugly. They say it’s too dark, too ugly. It’s not beautiful. Like it’s a monkey. Looks like I don’t take a shower or I should smile so they could see me.”
I would confide in my sister and she would tell me this is society, because she came to the country in 1999 and been through this. But my sister bleached her skin.
When she came to this country, she did bleach [her skin]. So I talked with her and that’s when she would say I should consider bleaching. A huge amount of people from my country bleach their skin.