“I grew up in a high rise across from Coney Island. It was a...

“I grew up in a high rise across from Coney Island. It was a great childhood, but the neighborhood started to change, and my dad didn’t like it. So he bought us a house in Long Island. It had a big backyard, and a porch. I was finally going to have my own room. We were so excited. But the day after we moved in, someone painted a message on our house. It said: ‘KKK, Niggers Move Away.’ I remember my mother started crying. But my father got angry. He said: ‘We’re not moving anywhere.’ And that same day he repainted the wall. There was one other black family on the block. And I think they had a better sense of what was going on, because they never let their kids go outside. But both my parents worked. So my sister and I hung out. Some of the kids were nice. But I started noticing the way their parents looked at me. It was a look that all black people know. The ‘what are you doing here?’ look. We lived on a canal, so a lot of the families had boats. And sometimes the kids would play in them while they were tied to the dock. But one day my friend Donna got called into her house. And when she came back, she told me I needed to leave. Because black people weren’t allowed in the boat. I was only eight years old. I cried the whole way home. Things got even worse when school started. Two boys named Dante and Michael would follow me to the bus stop. It was a quarter mile walk, but it felt like an eternity. They’d kick, and move away. Kick, and move away. Dante had corrective shoes with heavy soles, so his kicks hurt the most. The whole time they’d call me ‘monkey’ and ‘tar baby.’ There was nothing I could say to them. Nothing I could change. These kids were kicking me for no reason, and that’s what hurt the most. Deep down I knew I was a good person, but nobody saw that. And when you’re a kid, you don’t know enough to be mad about it. You just think that’s the way things are. And you sorta move on with your life. But you can’t move on completely. Recently my company held a George Floyd memorial. And my boss asked me to share my story during the video conference. When I told about those kicks, I started crying. So I guess that little girl is still in there somewhere.”