By Asher Lehrer-Small, The74, February 7, 2023
Growing up in northern Vermont, people who looked like Irian Adii were few and far between. She recalls that her all-white second-grade classmates spread the rumor that the young girl, who has a Black father and white mother, was sick and contagious.
“No one would touch what I touched because they thought someone that looked like me must have been, like, riddled with disease,” Adii said. One peer told her to change her skin color like pop superstar Michael Jackson did.
After that experience, she went through the rest of elementary and middle school “actively trying to rid myself of any association” with what she perceived as “Black stereotypes.” She studied hard and chose not to wear the Batik clothing she bought when visiting her father’s relatives in Indonesia. Being different weighed on her.
Comments (0)