āI grew up in a high rise across from Coney Island. It was a great childhood, but the neighborhood started to change, and my dad didnāt 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: āKKK, Niggers Move Away.ā I remember my mother started crying. But my father got angry. He said: āWeāre not moving anywhere.ā 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 āwhat are you doing here?ā 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 werenāt 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. Theyād kick, and move away. Kick, and move away. Dante had corrective shoes with heavy soles, so his kicks hurt the most. The whole time theyād call me āmonkeyā and ātar baby.ā There was nothing I could say to them. Nothing I could change. These kids were kicking me for no reason, and thatās what hurt the most. Deep down I knew I was a good person, but nobody saw that. And when youāre a kid, you donāt know enough to be mad about it. You just think thatās the way things are. And you sorta move on with your life. But you canāt 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.ā
