grew up in a working-class neighborhood. My mother lived in Section 8 housing. I remember—I didn’t talk about this in the book, which is interesting—I remember using food stamps. And I think what’s important about being a child living in poverty and experiencing racism and discrimination is the shame that comes with it. It’s one thing to be discriminated against or to watch your mother unable to feed her children because she has to pay rent; it’s a whole other thing to manage the shame and humiliation that comes with that.
