It was fourth grade art class. We were on the self portrait unit and everyone was doing their thing, looking in their little mirror, drawing some hair here, an eye there, business as usual. I was deeply focused on my mediocre art when the teacher yelled,“Who’s coloring their face green?” I looked at my neighbors, trying to figure out who the culprit was, momentarily oblivious to the twenty-something pairs of eyes staring at me. My parents had already talked to me about my disability, but it had never been a hindrance until that moment.

Colorblindness is fairly common, and it comes in various forms and severities. No, I don’t see black and white, and yes, I can tell your shirt is blue (or, maybe purple?). It doesn’t mean much other than I don’t perceive color the same way as everyone else, and I’ll never be an airplane pilot.

I’m definitely not ashamed of it. The only reason I might not immediately tell people is just to avoid their initial reaction, which is usually some ridiculous assumption about me seeing only black and white, followed by the “What color is this?” question. Speaking of, that’s probably my, and every other color blind person’s least favorite question in the universe. I get that it is a really interesting concept and you want to experiment with my vision, but when I have to answer that question every single time I tell people, it just gets old. And to their disappointment, most of the time I give a correct answer.

There are also different kinds of colorblindness. The most common type is red-green colorblindness, which is where the person can confuse green and red, no matter the difference in shade or brightness. I’m Protan Color Deficient, which is not exclusive to any particular colors, but occurs with certain shades, such as dark blue and light purple or light red and pink. It’s worse with the blues and purples or browns and greens than it is with yellow or orange.

We take in and interpret color through the three cones in our eyes, which are red, green and blue, and through a combination of those we perceive different colors. When one of these cones doesn’t perform like it’s supposed to or is just completely absent, the result is color blindness. The Deuteran (red-green) inefficiency is caused by a malfunctioning green cone, Protan is caused by a malfunctioning red cone and Tritan is caused by a malfunctioning blue cone.

It’s also far more prominent in men than women, as eight percent  of men have it compared to half of a percent of women. Within those numbers, Deuteran is far more common than Protan, the next most common, and Tritan, which is very rare. I’ve witnessed that trend firsthand, as both my dad and his dad are colorblind.

Really the worst that will happen is I mismatch my blue shirt with my purple bandana, but even so, it always provides a good laugh- except when you wear blue-green on St. Patrick’s Day. For a more detailed and in depth explanation of colorblindness, visit http://wearecolorblind.com/article/a-quick-introduction-to-color-blindness/.