I’m hurt at the events of the past week. I’m angry because we as a country have regressed. My childhood — happy on the whole — was marred in parts by racism. I fear for my children.
I proudly call myself a journalism brat because growing up with a mom who worked in a profession that wasn’t all that conducive to black women, I moved around a lot.
I grew up primarily in Brooklyn. I spent my last two years of high school in Philadelphia. But a chunk of my early years were spent in the same city where George Floyd died last week while in the custody of Minneapolis police.
I first encountered racism living in Northeast Minneapolis as a 10-year-old. I was jumped by the white kids. I was called the N-word.
I once took a drink of water at one of the city’s rec centers and witnessed a kid letting the water fountain run without drinking after I vacated it.
“What are you doing?” one of his friends…
