As she got older, notwithstanding her brown skin, the traits stemming from my mother’s European roots—her thinner lips, more Anglican nose, less coarse hair—aligned her appearance with a beauty that was considered exotic. While in her Caribbean home her appearance was deemed “less than,” in the larger Black community she was thought of as a beautiful oddity. The wounds inflicted in her youth run deep, however, and she spent most of her life feeling more odd than beautiful. My mother, believing that it was not an option to traffic on her looks or rely on the unconditional love of her family,
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