Blind to Differences

On the first day of kindergarten, I recall skipping into the classroom with excitement while holding my mother’s hand. Buzzing with joy, and anticipation to see who my other classmates were going to be. I walked straight to where my cubby would be and I looked around to see who my cubby-neighbour would be. When I looked to the left of my cubby I saw the name “Shawn”. I remember I did not think much about the name until I saw Shawn walk towards me with his mother. I noticed someone who looked different than me. My first instinct was nothing malicious, I remember I looked up at him and smiled while pointing to the cubby beside me. While my mother and his mother talked, I can remember he was telling me where he was from with slight hesitation. He was shy and kept on saying that he was from Georgia, and I replied back saying I was from Regina, trying to make him feel comfortable with his cubby-neighbour. After the initial five-year-old blabber I soon found out that I wanted to be his friend, and we were until he moved back home in the fifth grade. 

Looking back on my reaction I could tell that Shawn’s skin colour didn’t seem to bother me. Instead of paying attention to Shawn’s differences from mine, I focused on who he was as a person and our similarities. I can easily say that this first reaction I had with someone who had a different colour skin was alluding to how I would react to people of colour in the future, with no worries at all.