Then I began reading this book and I learned of new terms such as Jew, black and white. They were strange words to me, but in this book, they defined each character and how they lived. The colour of a character’s skin determined what bathroom they used. The kink in a character’s hair could make people point and laugh.

We live our lives according to social constructs of what is normal and what is different. As youth, these social constructs may be reflected on a smaller scale in high schools and group settings. We don’t want to be individuals who stand apart from the crowd that establishes “normal” and refrains from any deviation.

As a young person of African descent, I first heard about the establishment of Africentric schools through news media. It was such an exciting topic at the time because of the backlash the new idea was receiving from all spheres of the public and social spectrum. But according to a 2012 study, many Canadian youth from African and Afro-Caribbean roots did not want to be a part of this new development because they feared social stigmatization.

I find this extremely disheartening because there are educational disparities between black and white youth. These new developments were intended to rectify or at least minimize these disparities to allow blacks to succeed in the educational system. Why weren’t black youth on board with this opportunity? It wasn’t necessarily the fear of being disparate from others, but the fear of social response to this separation. It was the fear of deviating from what is normal, the fear of standing out like a sore thumb, the fear of being whispered about and pointed at because of difference. As a society, we have collectively constructed an ideal of what is beautiful, of what is desirable, of what is intelligent and of what is successful. This makes me want to stand back and look at how I have contributed to this.

We broadcast these ideals in many ways and this isn’t limited to a particular region or locality. It has transcended space and time to become an integration of modern-day society. We have advanced technologically. We have discovered cures for many of the ailments that afflict the human condition and yet still, this notion of constructing an ideal to which we must conform diminishes social relationships. Instead, the question should be what is ideal and how am I different, because that is what defines me and that is what makes me unique. God’s image should be so apparent before our mirrors that we fail to doubt how we constitute the ideal of uniqueness.

(Osei-Yeboah, 18, is a first-year student at the University of Toronto.)