Imagine a small, five year old girl playing at a playground. She’s full of energy and life and has the biggest heart anyone would ever see. She has the prettiest brown skin and dark curly hair. She’s having the time of her life with the new friends she made that day even though she may never see them again. She looks so happy. But after a while, the little one runs up to an adult. This woman has white skin and short, blonde hair. People watching may think, surely that isn’t her mom, she must be lost. Shortly after their interaction, the women and the girl leave the playground. The five year-old girl in that scenario was me. I was the little girl who went up to my mom and got weird looks from others. I never understood why people looked at us like that. I was just asking my mommy for a snack. What was so strange about that? She wasn’t answering me because she was too busy looking around her. I noticed that mommy always did that whenever we would go out. I just wanted her to be happy. It made me very sad to see her like that. Little did I know that it would only get worse as I got older. 

Today, I am 17 years old. My brother and sister are both 14 years-old. They are both taller than me and have darker skin. All three of us came from different birth families so we do not look alike. We still get weird looks from people whenever we go out as a family. Now that my siblings are old enough to be self aware of their surroundings and their own thoughts and feelings, they notice it too. One time, there were people staring at us in a hotel, and my brother told me that he didn’t like when people stared at him. It broke my heart because I know what it feels like to be self-conscious having eyes being on me. I always check up on my siblings every once in a while and make sure that they have good friends and aren’t getting picked on. I’ve always said that I wish I could stop them from having to experience certain issues like that. I want to protect them from all of the bad in the world. But, unfortunately, I can’t do that.

Getting weird looks from people isn’t the only thing that I’ve had to deal with. I also got bullied in school. The bullying started around fifth grade when I started telling people that I am different. That I am adopted. After that, people’s perception of me changed forever. I would never be looked at the same way. The first thing people saw was my appearance and not my personality or my heart. I’ve had some mean and offensive things said to me in response to me being adopted. Some have been unintentional, but most have definitely been intentional. I had to move schools at one point because I was being picked on so bad. There were so many times, during middle school especially, that I would come home sobbing to my parents about what people said about me. The most painful/hurtful thing said to me that I will never forget was that I was, “a disgrace to the black community.” That sentence has stuck with me for years. It still hurts whenever I think about it. Another person said that I “look like an ogre” because of my nose, forehead, and other facial features. Comments like that made me feel like I was not viewed as an actual person. My parents eventually contacted my principal, but he didn’t fix the issue either. It wasn’t until a football coach had to get involved that I was finally left alone. It took me a long time after that to realize that I am so much more than my skin color. I still don’t understand why most people just can’t seem to see that. I do have a lot of amazing people in my life that just see me for me. I am forever grateful for them. But they are few. 

My whole life, I’ve never really felt like I could fit in. I’m “too white” or “too black.” I either act too much like a white person and need more friends that look like me, or I don’t understand what other white people go through and I shouldn’t be friends with so many of them. I can fully admit that I act differently than other people like me. I am not ashamed of it, or at least I try not to be. But naturally, since I was raised by and have lived around white people my entire life so far, it makes sense. Even in school or at church, there weren’t a whole lot of people like me there either. It’s like when you adopt an accent from visiting a certain place for so long. You can’t help it. It just happens. There is no place for me. I want there to be a day where I am accepted for who I am and not what I look or sound like. I am not sure if that’ll ever happen, but I will never stop believing that it could. It is very exhausting and draining. I have definitely gotten more used to it as years go by, but that doesn’t mean that it’s gotten any easier to deal with. I’ve honestly given up trying to explain anything to anyone about why I am the way I am. I hope that once I become an adult, I will be able to start over. That I would be able to reintroduce myself essentially. 

In conclusion, being someone like me in today’s society is incredibly challenging and frowned upon. I wish more people in this world wouldn’t be so judgmental of people who are different. Five year old Jordan wishes that she wasn’t being stared at all the time. She wishes people would see her as a normal five year old like the rest at the playground. We both wish things could be different. But will they ever be?