It's Your Outlook That Matters

Seven years ago in fifth grade, I was a naive child. I believed that the world should be an unchanging place, a place that did not have differences in it. Growing up in Cumming Georgia made holding onto this false image an easy thing to do indeed. There was no diversity in that small town. Everyone was relatively the same and nothing ever changed. It was the perfect ideal setting for my grand pseudo-belief. Perfect until William Reilly moved in.

William Reilly was a typical ten year old with a mother and father who cared for him. He liked to skate and ride his bike just like any other kid. The only difference was that he was black. You may say that that is no difference at all and why should it matter? But it did matter. There was not another single black family in the entire town. William was an outcast and he was treated as such.

I still remember Will’s first day at school. All the kids were quietly working on their morning work when he walked through the door. William handed the teacher a note and he quietly took his seat in the back of the class. Everyone looked at him oddly and I remember thinking how peculiar he looked. William had dark skin, different facial features and was taller than most of my other classmates. For some reason right then and there, I decided I wasn’t going to like him. There was no apparent reason for this besides the fact that he seemed to encroach upon my belief that different things are unneeded in this world.

Days passed and I noticed that other kids seemed to have come to the same conclusion as I had and began to torment him. They began with small things such as calling him names but it soon escalated. The bullies began to physically strike out at poor Will for no other reason than the fact that he was different. During all this, I sat back and watched passively but I began to realize that what the other kids were doing to him was wrong and that William wasn’t very different