I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t believe a complete stranger had humiliated me in front of my friends – we were in middle school. We were walking though Hanes Mall headed to The Cookie Co. for a hot and fresh-baked cookie when a young, black teenager spoke to me as we walked past him and a group of his friends.

“Excuse me, but you left your nose back there,” he said very loudly, as his friends erupted in a chorus of loud, obnoxious laughter.

I don’t know if he made that comment because I was light-skinned or because he thought I looked like a stuck-up white girl. Either way, the implication that I was a snob or thought that I was better than someone else stung. I wasn’t raised to think I was better than anyone. And I wasn’t.

My two friends who were walking slightly ahead of me, turned around and looked at me with shocked looks on their faces. I was smiling to mask the hurt and anger I was feeling inside. They both kind of laughed in a very uncomfortable way. But I wanted to put them at ease, and I didn’t want to show that I was furious over what had just happened. It wasn’t the first time I’d been publicly ridiculed and it wouldn’t be the last.