History.

I've always known I was adopted. From a very young age I could tell. My parents and my siblings are all in love with sports, I hate sports. I'm artistic, my family isn't. I can sign tolerably well, my family isn't allowed to sing 'Happy Birthday.' I'm also much smarter than my family.

Also, I'm black and they're white.

Well, actually, I'm half black and half white. What happened, is my parents had two children naturally, and then they wanted to adopt. That's where I came in:

My birth mother and birth father were having an adulterous affair, and then she got pregnant with me. She couldn't keep me because she already had four other sons (slut ;D), and he couldn't keep me because he didn't want his wife to know about the affair. So I was put on the market and I was adopted, and ever since one day old I've been living with the family I have now.

Perhaps it's possible that my status as an outsider stems from the fact that I've been different from my whole family at birth (obviously there are a few other things aside from the fact that I'm half black, and adopted that make me an outsider, but for now I'll stick to this topic).

My parents have no black friends, nor do my siblings. They're not obviously not against black people or anything, they just don't have any friends who aren't white. It's always amusing when I point this out to my parents, because they get really upset. I think that they try very hard to be socially acceptable.

I remember one time my mother was flipping through a magazine and she goes "Joshua, there are no black people in this magazine!" I hadn't noticed, but I guess there's some sort of buzzer in her head when the media doesn't represent the racial percentages of the country correctly. Who knows?

What's strange though, is that living my entire life around white people, I forget a lot of the time that I'm not white. For example, in my government class when I read about how different races vote and the different statistics, I always group myself with the white people, and have to go back and remind myself. It's not just me though, I've had whole conversations with people and then they stop and say "Oh! I just realized that you're black!"

In their defense I'm quite light skinned. People usually call me "mocha" or "cappuccino" or some other coffee flavor. I also don't act like the stereotypical black person; I'm kind of a grammar nazi and I don't do baggy clothes. Again, outsider.

Every now and then though, I wonder what it would be like to fit in, and be a normal guy... then I remember how perfect I am and make out with myself in the mirror. ;D