It wasn’t until I got to the 6th grade that I realized people would go out of their way to call me ugly solely based on the fact that I had dark skin. This concept was foreign to me before that.

The first time a boy said this to me I was genuinely confused. I actually grew up with people constantly me how pretty I was. I’m the only girl in the family so people were always verbally spoiling me and gassing me up like a princess, which was great.

But then I got to 6th grade and suddenly little black boys were telling me I was ugly and looked like a gorilla. It confused me how I was supposed to be ugly when I had their same features and yet somehow they considered themselves to be good looking.