When You Don’t Fit In: The Value of Being Different
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
When I was ten, my blonde, blue-eyed best friend gave me a label.
“I never thought I’d make friends with anyone brown,” she said. She was clearly embarrassed by her revelation and had summoned the courage to own up.
I was dumbstruck for a moment. I never really thought of myself as brown, or indeed, as anything. I was just me.
Then, wanting to get us both out of this awkward situation, and thinking of how my Sri Lankan mother would compliment my beautiful golden brown skin, I …