I have a little cleft in the edge of my skin. When I was a child, I asked my mother about that she said "Before God sent you down from heaven to me, he pointed to you and said 'that's my favorite angel.' and left the mark of his pointy finger." That's what i believed for 15 years.

Stella

I used to think that African American ppl were made of Chocolate. SO I wanted my mommy to have a kid that was african american.

Emily

I have a birthmark on my thigh, when I was young, I thought it was a dirt spot and I would always try to wash it off but it would never get clean. I thought I was taking a bath wrong

Anon

Since I saw black people at the mall all of the time as a 4 year old, I thought that when you got old enough, you would change colors! one day I saw a little black girl about my age in a stroller and wondered if she was thinking about how I was still white.Then I asked my mom if the girl was a white boy as a baby, and she explained it to me.

AnonY

It's kind of funny, because I used to believe that if you put too much water on your face, like on your chin, you would grow a beard or hair on your chin, so I always tried not to get my chin wet and stare in the mirror to make sure I wasn't growing any hair on my chin.

LiLTiger

When I was little, grown-ups always said to wash your hands with hot water, not cold, because it kills the germs better. So I imagined little red circles with arms, legs, and a face as the germs. I imagined that when you wash with cold water, it just drips into your hands and the germs shiver, but don't go away. But when you wash with hot, a big wave goes inside your hands and the germs scream and run away.

Anonymous

My grandfather once told me that you got rid of warts by rubbing a potato on it and buring the potato in the backyard. I believed him.

MM

I was told that people had seven layers of skin. I thought that if you lost one layer, it didn't grow back. I was so scared to get scrapes and cuts.

Sarah

Growing up in a largely white area, I got the impression that all black
people were born in hot counties; obviously, they were born white, and
got such strong tans that they ended up black. People in England stayed
white because of the crappy weather!

Ollie

I mustve been about 6 or 7 and my Cousin had been abroad on holiday somewhere hot, his skin was blistering and peeling. He told me that a massive blister had popped on his arm and lots of little red spiders ran out of it. I was terrified of getting sunburnt from then on

Rachel

when i was little i was a very freckly kid and i got told that everytime i went outside that the sun would kiss me and thats what i thought freckles were.

sumpey, jumpar

When I was little, I went to a fast food restaurant and I had nuggets with sweet & sour sauce and I got alot of the sauce on my hands. After I wiped my hands in the napkins I looked at them, and for the first time I saw my life-lines and I thought that the sauce had made brown lines in my hands that may never come off.

Anon

I used to believe that black people were just white people that had got really good, all over tans.

This was further reinforced when I saw that the palms of black people's hands and feet were white, which obviously happened because when they tanned they kept their hands flat.

GianPiero

When I was little about 4 or 5 my older sister told me that when I painted my nails and got nailpolish on my skin my skin would turn the same color as the nailpolish and peel off like a banana. Needless to say I didn't paint my nails for a looong time :)

switchwanabee

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I overheard my mother mention 'colored people'. I thought that she meant people who were green, blue, purple, etc. I'd never seen anyone like that, so I was looking forward to seeing one someday. Of course, in school, I had plenty of black classmates, but it never occured to me to think of them as 'colored'.

Karen

When I was a kid I believed that black peoples butts were light skinned like the bottom of their hands and feet. I figured out the truth in 6th grade camp when I bunked in the den of the predominatly black school we went to camp with. For some reason those guys liked to moon eachother alot.

some dude

My family had these two huge white cats with this thick, long fur when I was really little. They were actually brothers from the same litter (named Bo & Luke...Dukes of Hazzard?) One day I parted one of the cat's hair and saw white skin. I checked the other cat's skin and I could swear that I saw dark brown skin (probably dirt or a freckle). Since they were brothers with different colored skin- I was convinced that my caucasian pregnant mom was going to give me a black little bro or sis.

Mixie

You know how your skin peels off when you've had a sunburn or when you get a blister or anything like that? Well I believed that if you peeled the skin enough, you would eventually peel through to the bone.

Anon

I was taken on a London bus in the 1950's when the government was encouraging people from overseas to come to fill certain jobs. Seeing something I had never seen before - a lady with black skin on the bus - I screamed loudly and pointed to my mothers embarrasment (and the lady's probably) "Mummy Mummy that lady needs to go to hospital!!"

lucidlupin

I thought that a "birth mark" was the first place on your body that was born.

My birthmark is on the back of my head but my older sister's is on the inside of her knee and I could never figure out how THAT part of her could come out of my mom first.

julia