My shoulders stoop from carrying the weight of the world. Sounds melodramatic, right? But that’s who I’ve always been, even as a child.
My childhood was spent in an area of overt racism. My family was racist; I was not*, but I carried the weight of the prejudices that surrounded me.
I attended a school where girls and people of color enjoyed fewer rights and freedoms than white boys.
Because I was an excellent student, I got away with speeches in front of the school supporting civil rights, Bobby Kennedy, and women’s equality. I was the first female in my school to wear pants — an action that changed the school's unofficial, unwritten dress code. I stood up to students who belonged to the KKK and bullied the African-American students, once resulting in a gut punch that doubled me over and sent the boy, more than twice my size and a member of the KKK, home for two weeks. He should have been expelled.