When I was younger, I used to pretend that I was born in New York City or Chicago, like Chillicothe, Georgia, never existed. When Vera and Birdie packed me up and shipped me off to boarding school, I stepped into my new life. I stepped out of one little box in my life and into another. But my cardboard life of elite schools and professional success never really eased the haunting ache of growing up poor, Black, and female in rural Georgia. And all the rage and anger that I was fully entitled to was tamped down by a chorus of voices telling me to forgive, to turn the other cheek, to look the
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