grew up with parents who believed you should tone down your blackness when in public. I didn’t know how to function when the public came to my private home. I grew up feeling tremendous pride in our culture, what we as a people overcame and accomplished, but at the same time there was this message from my parents telling me not to be too black. At school, with my white friends and teachers, there were all these stereotypes I felt I had to dispel, and, with a lot of my black friends, I had to prove that I was black enough—whatever that means. It was complicated,”
Double consciousness
