I was going on a girls trip and we were talking about like wanting to get tan.

And I was like, yeah, I definitely want to, like, get in the sun.

You know, make sure my sunscreen.

And my friend was relaying the story to a coworker and said, "Oh, well, does she even tan?

She's already black."

And then they told me that story back, and she was like, "Oh, isn't that funny?"

And I was like, Oh, not really?

I have skin.

Like, I'm still a human being.

Hair is a huge part of, like, who I am and what my story is.

I didn't always think I was as good looking as I am because I didn't look like the people I grew up with.

I grew up in a really small town in kind of a rural area.

Not super small, but -- Not much diversity.

Yeah.

Where I would go to get my hair done, every time I would come in, they would say, Okay, we're going to make you beautiful now.

Like, I wasn't beautiful before.

And then I kind of struggled to find somebody to do my hair for a long time.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, I wasn't comfortable.

I just wanted to look like my friends.

Yeah.

And just fit in.

I get that.

And then a friend of a friend actually was just doing their apprenticeship, and they said, Do you want to come in for a free haircut?

And I was like, I love free things.

Absolutely.

Sign me up.

She spent some time getting to know the texture of my hair, and she's like, Your natural texture is so great.

I can tell where you've done some chemical things.

And it took her telling me about it.

It was just kind of an eye opener just to be the most authentic version of myself.

So who is your authentic self?

How do you define that?

I'm a black person of color, and I add that person of color aspect to it because, you know, I was raised by my white family.

I don't know any member of my black family, you know, with my white friends, I'm black for sure.

Like, that's how they see me.

With my black friends.

I'm I'm mixed for sure.

That's a very clear definition.

Yeah.

The ability to be able to say this is who I am, this is how I identify requires individuals to speak up for themselves, and that's at least for me, something difficult to do.

You know, I always want to blend in, and and correcting somebody is hard.

I love correcting people when they're wrong.

In fact, that's toxic traits probably is not just letting letting people, like, be be wrong.

I often also find myself not correcting people on behalf of some other people because it would draw more attention to the person that has already been, you know, aggressed towards.

Right.

Give me an example of that.

It was in a conference call.

A black woman was speaking.

And after she was done speaking, one of the other women in the room said, oh, wow, thank you so much for sharing this.

You're just so articulate.

Like, this has just been so helpful.

And black people get that so often is, oh, you're so articulate.

As if it's a surprise.

Right.

So did you correct her?

I did go afterwards and say, hey, I just want to let you know, you didn't think that it was offensive, but it was because we wouldn't have complimented you like that.

We would have just said, thank you so much for sharing this information is incredibly helpful.

So how did they respond?

Very defensive.

They just were like oh, I would never, I didn't, I of course I didn't mean it like that.

You know, I just was complimenting her on her the way that she spoke.

And I'm like, right.

Yeah, that's the point.

So it didn't really end super well.

We still work together and it's fine.

But I think at the very least, it gave her something to think about.

I'm always trying to consider what is that working relationship that I have with this individual because I got to see them every day.

Because if I do correct them most often, they also feel offended.

Right.

I have to feel hopeful that eventually we will all get to some level of you know, not a melting pot but, like a tossed salad where every added vegetable is a different flavor but it all complements each other and makes a really great entree How do conversations around race happen with your family?

I recently had a conversation with family just regarding the presence of police.

They live in a suburb, so their experiences are a lot different.

Their thinking is, you know, hey, these things wouldn't be happening in Minneapolis or in Saint Paul if there was more police around And I'm saying, you know, I don't always feel safer around police.

I'm, in fact, really nervous.

The grocery store, when my house has a police officer that they staff as like after hours security.

And the first thing I do when I walk in the door is I make eye contact with that police officer and I say hi to them.

So that they know, like, I'm not going to steal something.

I wouldn't be making this eye contact with you if that was going to happen.

And when I told my family that they were shocked that's just something I do so that they know that I'm not a threat because I live in a pretty white neighborhood.