You can’t be neutral forever. Life forces you to pick a side. Friendships. Faith. What you stand for. At some point, you have to own where you stand. Or someone will choose for you.

There are seasons in our lives that shape us far more than their brevity would suggest. Moments that become milestones, conversations that become convictions, and experiences that become the lens through which we view everything thereafter. Often, these formative periods arrive without warning—and frequently when we’re still young enough that our bones are growing faster than our wisdom.

For me, that season was sixth grade. Those nine months between elementary school’s simplicity and the teenage years’ complexity became the training ground for much of my perspective on faith, identity, and purpose. In the hallways and classrooms of that middle school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, God was already at work—using lunch tables and locker assignments to prepare me for spiritual truths I wouldn’t fully comprehend until decades later.

The Battlefield of Middle School

Sixth grade wasn’t school—it was a battlefield. Hormones are flying everywhere. Kids growing six inches overnight while others stayed tiny. Girls passing notes. Boys shoving each other into lockers. Cliques forming and dissolving daily. Cafeteria tables might as well have had invisible force fields around them. And there I was—the new kid, fresh from New York, dropped into Tulsa like an alien invasion. Accent? Different. Culture? Different. And for the first time, I learned—being light-skinned was a thing. This is Part 1 of my series: How Sixth Grade Prepared Me for Everything.

My dad packed us up and moved us to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for work. I walked into my new school with my New York accent, feeling like I just got dropped into a different universe. The first day, some kid heard me talk and said, “Yo, why you sound like that?”

I had never been “the kid with the accent.” I was just… me. But now? I was the new, weird-sounding, light-skinned kid trying to figure out where I fit. Sixth grade wasn’t just school—it was diplomacy.

And this was my first experience with colorism. This was also my first time being in a predominantly Black, culturally urban environment—a stark contrast from my previous school. Long before Drake and Chris Brown, light-skinned Michael Jackson and Prince ruled the charts, and Al B. Sure had every girl swooning. Turns out, being light-skinned came with perks I never asked for. Girls liked it. Dudes? Not so much.

The Illusion of Neutrality

Sixth grade is when you start noticing girls and figuring out your identity. The hallways were like a chaotic chess board—everyone making strategic moves. Popular kids striding down the middle. Wannabes orbiting around them like satellites. Teachers yelling “No running!” while dodging backpacks the size of small cars. Every lunch table a different universe with its own unwritten constitution.

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