It was stated by Wilt Chamberlain that there were no “little Wilties.” It might not have been accurate.

It was stated by Wilt Chamberlain that there were no “little Wilties.” It might not have been accurate.

This article first appeared in Sports Illustrated on March 9, 2015. Click this link to subscribe.

Aaron Levi was curious about his identity, origins, and sense of belonging. His sense of being unique sparked his interest. When he was six months old, a white couple adopted him as a mixed-race child. At nearly every age, he was taller than his classmates; by the time he graduated from high school, he measured 6’5″. In addition, he claimed to be gay despite his desperation to disguise it.

He dressed like a New Waver at South Eugene (Ore.) High in the early 1980s, wearing a flattop and listening to British reggae. He started to identify as an artist since he enjoyed to draw. He claimed that people thought he played basketball because of his height and skin tone. However, he wasn’t too interested in sports.

Students would frequently question him, “What are you?” Some speculated that he was Middle Eastern, Greek, or Italian. A few people assumed he was Latino when he moved to Northern California for art school as he grew older and spoke Spanish. He observed that African-Americans nodded to him in a brotherly manner.

He pictured his biological parents as passionate lovers, grateful for having given birth to him. Later on, he discovered from his own experience how painful the adoption process was for both his birth mother and him. He said, “Rejection is woven into your DNA when you are adopted.”

He was aware of his luck, though. Despite the fact that his adoptive parents split when he was still in elementary school, he claimed to have had a pleasant life in Oregon. In the 1960s, Don and Harriet Levi adopted four children of color, one of whom they named Naema after a song by John Coltrane. What they knew about Aaron’s biological parents they shared with him, including the fact that his father was tall and black and his mother was white.