All About Love

'In my segregated grade school and junior high school, no black child was made to feel that allegiance to the race was determined by not liking to do one's work. If you played violin, studied French or loved physics, no one could taunt you that these passions were expressing a desire to be white, as everyone was black, including our teachers. That changed with racial integration. In the predominantly white high school, one of my most attentive, caring white teachers also told me repeatedly that I would never have a black male partner because I was smart. There were no black males in the gifted classes in these schools. Their absence was not because they were not smart; it was indicative of the desire of white racists to keep black males away from contact with white females. . . . Racial integration soon became a space where heightened levels of racial humiliation and shaming took place. Shame makes self-acceptance and self-love impossible.'