The Past few Sundays I’ve watched my family pile into the car and pull out of our driveway on the way to church. I’ve chosen to stay behind. First it was because we got a new puppy, and he couldn’t last that long alone. Then it was because I was having severe back pain, and I could’t sit up that long. But then it was because I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be around people. I chose to listen to a sermon podcast instead. I cleaned up the house, lay in bed, and watched the sky turn milky …
Race
Where Is Home to Me?
We cannot have reconciliation without first having truth. I. I climb back into my minivan, fumbling with my keys. My face is blazing, my breath coming in short bursts, fevered and sour on my tongue and in that moment I don’t know whether I want to explode in a stream of expletives or lay my head down on the steering wheel and weep. Maybe both. My mom is waiting in the passenger seat and I relay my story to her, words tumbling out of my mouth blistering with rage. Minutes before I’d stood in …
Coming of Age in This American Life
I. As a girl, I learned about racism from my white father. He taught me it was evil which was the exact opposite of his upbringing where racism was as natural as a Carolinian drawl and black-eyed peas with salty cured ham hocks and collard greens. His blonde haired blue-eyed roots were soaked in white supremacy, fertilized by poverty and lack of education, deep south segregation, and his mother telling him not to come home if he ever got caught playing with a n*$#@!% kid again. His kin found …
