Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America – An Acclaimed YA Anthology on Diverse Teen Experiences

Your grandma used to always tell me that just because something is over doesn't mean it wasn't successful. All things end at some point.

Being in a shadow is never just as simple as stepping out of it. Shadows can camouflage a lot of things.

I dreamed of going to the most remote places on this earth to dig for old bones, older than people. Before humans and their stupid ideas. Before hate. Maybe even before love, too. Dinosaurs just existed. No lectures, no books, no language. No world-conquering Europeans and no defeated everybody else. Just those powerful, unrestrained creatures roaming the planet.

Because it is the hardness of the floor, and the abrupt halt in momentum, and the unyielding nature of the surface, that causes a thing to crack. Even if it is not that thing's fault. And then we talk about this thing being broken, or it needing to be fixed, and not what part of the floor has played in the matter. Never the part about the floor being a constant threat. Even if it is a nice floor. Even if everybody wants one just like it.

Blackness is indeed a social construct. Within the context of American racial politics, there can be no Black without white. No racism without race. But the prevalence of culture is undeniable.

There’s no such thing as a half sister.

We aren’t thugs in this family. We respect the police,” he’d said. Like BLM was about respecting authority, not demanding the right to live.

They’re just so stupid,” he says, sighing. “In addition to this stupid, racist feud they have with your family, they’ve got all of these Make America Great Again posters plastered over our windows, and while we were in the living room watching a movie together, they just kept making really shitty homophobic comments. And I had enough.” He sighs again. “And you know, they had the nerve to threaten me, saying if I cost them the race tomorrow, they’ll send me to Texas to live with my grandparents.

There's nothing wrong with being a feminist," Grandma said. "Don't you two want women to have the same rights as men?" Both Myron and I nodded. "Good, then you're feminists.

That’s disgusting—you don’t kiss girls, you understand? We don’t have gays in our family,” he said. Mom eventually got him calmed down, but I never forgot the way his eyes bulged as he yelled “GAYS.