Little Black Girl, You Don’t Have that Right.

Content Warning: This memoir contains an accurate account of childhood racism and includes a direct quote using a severe racial slur.

The world had a way of drawing lines around you before you even knew how to walk, but it wasn't until 1979 that someone finally said the words out loud to my face.

Before that, the world was supposed to be as simple as green grass beneath our feet as we play tag or fished in the creek.

On this day I was in the front yard with my best friend Katherine, our heads bent close together as we searched the grass for four-leaf clovers, wishing for a little bit of childhood luck.

Katherine lived with her grandparents, not her mother and father, we played together every single day. Katherine's parents would rarely came to see her. So we both knew what it felt like to have complicated families.

But this afternoon, it was different.

As we sat there in the summer heat, a van pulled up in the driveway. The van cast a shadow over our game and we looked up as we heard the passenger-side door slam. It was the first time I had ever seen her mother in person.

Looking up, I expected the warmth of a mom who had finally come home to visit. I stood up and stuck my hand out to introduce myself.

Instead, she looked down at me with a cold sharp hatred and spoke to Katherine at the same time in a tone that made it clear that some complications were heavier than others.

When she exclaimed "Katherine, You can't play with that N- — -er! Katherine {now standing and facing her mother} froze. The brave girl I went on adventures with everyday suddenly looked paralyzed under her mother's glare.

Before either of us could process the words, process the words, her mother ordered her straight into the house. I simultaneously dropped my extended hand to my side, the warmth of my polite greeting completely gone.

I looked at Katherine one last time as she was pulled away, then turned around and ran as fast as I could down the street to the safety of my own home, trying to outrun a word I didn't yet understand.

When I finally burst through my own front door, the tears were already spilling over. I was emotional, crying and visibly upset, my chest heaving from running so fast down the street and the weight of what had just happened.

My ten -year old sister was sitting at the dining room table reading. She looked up from her book took one look at my face, and asked, "What is wrong with you?"

Through my sobs, I managed to choke out the story of the four leaf clovers, the van, and the ugly words Katherine's mother had thrown at me. My sister didn't look shocked or angry. Instead, she just looked at me with the heavy calmness and said the words that would stay with me forever: "You finally found out that you are not white!"

After that day, the easy innocence of my friendship with Katherine was gone. I didn't play with Katherine as much anymore; the invisible line her mother drew in the grass was always sitting between us.

A month later when Katherine's birthday came around, her grandmother reached across that line and invited me to her birthday dinner. I decided to go, When I arrived I realized I was the only guest there who was not a part of the family.

As we sat down to eat, the front door opened, and Katherine's mother entered the house.

The moment I saw her a wave of discomfort washed over me, and my body went tense. But before the fear could take over, Katherine's grandmother reached out and patted my hand ever so gently.

It was a quiet powerful gesture of comfort that said everything without making a sound.

I sat through that dinner surrounded by their family, anchored by the kindness of a grandmother who refused to let hate win in her home. Once the dinner was over, Heather and I eventually went our separate ways for good, our childhood adventures officially left behind in the grass of 1979.