My first memory of feeling “other” in a group of black people was at Kim Hill’s 11th birthday party.
It was ’99 into the 2000s, and we were poppin’ our butts to “Back That Thang Up” by Juvenile. Well, I thought I was until I was unceremoniously called out by another black girl. “What is you doin???”
I was embarrassed, and it was a couple years before I had the confidence to dance again. Until that point, I hadn’t exactly realized I wasn’t “black-black.” I knew I sounded “like a white person,” but I called my mom “Momma,” loved black music, and had a bunch of cousins I wasn’t related to. Not to mention, I was black.