When I received the invitation from a friend to enter a writing contest about “On Being Different,” especially when it came to some aspect of the medical field and/or studying, I immediately thought about my brief stint of selling health insurance over the phone. Since nothing happens in a vacuum, I began my piece on my first day of kindergarten. That was the day I learned that I was Black.
The consequences of that racial designation has influenced my experiences, which I summarized in my essay, published by On Pulse: