In elementary school, the fifth grade students got to hold a day-long checkers tournament in the gymnasium. And yes, it got a tad bit intense. I practiced for days beforehand, trying to craft my skill. The winner got a basket of snacks and everlasting pride. The stakes were high, and I was ready. Despite my spirit, I lost my first game, and spent the rest of the day cheering on my friends. While a happy memory, I'll never forget that day for a very different reason.

A year later, a fresh middle-schooler, I reveled in interacting with students from different elementary schools. There were five elementary schools, and two middle schools, so I found myself overwhelmed in new things to learn and know about other people. A student once mentioned her winning a chess tournament in fifth grade. Not checkers, chess. I was confused, a little jealous, but honestly, more surprised than anything. Chess was a game foreign to both me and my elementary class mates alike.

That night, my mom, a second grade teacher from my elementary school, told me that the children who grew up in that elementary school were more privileged than those from my own. Most of their parents were doctors, lawyers, and professors, while a lot of my friends' parents didn't have careers. So, my mom explained, chess was a game most of those children already knew how to play, whereas most of my school would've needed to be taught. Checkers was easier.

Now, I sit here typing this article on my MacBook Air, with freshly manicured nails, on a Thursday night in my dorm room at my expensive, private, liberal arts college. While coming from a place of white and middle-class privilege, to some, I may seem spoiled. Ignorant to world around me. And, most importantly, apathetic to the struggles I've seen my classmates face. But, after looking past first impressions, people would hear a different story.

Coming from central Pennsylvania, I grew up in close proximity to a world-famous hospital and two nationally acclaimed universities. Despite economic well-being in neighboring towns, my community struggled. Turns out my elementary school is currently considered 85 percent at-risk, based off of family income level. My elementary school now sends bags of food home with those at-risk students over the weekend, because they have no guaranteed meals. Seeing as geographically, that school teaches students from two different homeless shelters, and a low-income housing development, I was not foreign to the idea of "the haves" and "the have-nots". I saw it daily among my best friends, and in my own home.

I grew up in a single family household. A Christmas was spent visiting my father in jail. I watched family members and loved ones struggle with drug addiction, mental illness, fatal alcoholism, and bankruptcy. My sister gave up a full-tuition scholarship to college because she became a teen parent. Then, my stepmom told me I would never make it to college, and that I would probably find myself in the same situation as my sister. I watched some of my brightest friends turn down college due to lack of parental support. One of my friends was actually told by a parent that she wasn't smart enough for college. Some of my friends joined the military because they didn't see another option. Some of my friends dropped out because they needed a full-time job to support their families.

I don't tell this story in an attempt to garner sympathy from my peers, or to prove that I'm not as privileged as it may seem. I tell this story to urge you to try and understand other people for more than their race, their privilege, their family's wealth, or the clothes they wear. Each and everyone person we have the blessing to meet has a story that needs to be told-- to you. Amidst every prejudice facing this nation is one rooted in a lack of willingness to both listen and understand others.

So, why will I never play chess? Because it reminds me of where I came from. And how proud I am to be where I am, despite the struggles I or my family have faced. Learning to play chess would be like assimilating into a culture in which I don't belong. So, sure, I can attend a high-tier private college, and yes, I'll get my nails done and heck yeah I wanted the MacBook air. But I will never play chess.