“But he’s not white.”

That’s the phrase that changed my childhood. For the first several years of my life, I didn’t realize my brother was different. We had fights. We lived in the same house. Sure, he looked different from me. So did all my friends. It didn’t mean anything in my mind. That’s just how life was.

But when we were about six, kids at school began to ask me if he was adopted. Not understanding what the word meant, or why they would ask that, I just said no. But eventually it was explained to me: My mother, my sister, and I are white. My brother is not.

After I found out, I told my brother he was black. He replied by telling me that I was wrong. He didn’t understand it either. After all, we were only six and seven years old. Our family was completely normal to us. But to other people it looked strange.

So they felt the need to ask. It wasn’t the kids who bothered me, though; it was the adults, often strangers, who with us kids in the room would ask my mother if he was adopted, if she was a babysitter, or if any of us had the same father. These questions made my brother wonder if being black was a bad thing. At one point he even wanted to be white.

For a while, when people asked, I explained that he was my half brother. But a few years ago I stopped explaining. It matters to them, but not to me. He is my brother. The circumstances of how that came to be are not relevant.