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Back to irl I was called everything froray eyes The crazy thing is, I didn’t even go to a predominantly white school I’ve always attended black schools, but no irl, I was always picked at It was mainly the boys ould pick on me and call et their favorite one, which was charcoal

In elementary school, I used to co to them about the names that I was called in school While o to the school and cause a scene, nore it because, in his exact words, “They’ll be asking you for a job in a few years”

My father always had high hopes for h that he couldn’t even co to the principal, so the kids could leave h Itthat I’d gone through that terrible experience

When I was a little girl, people from my school weren’t able to appreciate this type of beauty yet… this type of black girl ain, even I wasn’t able to appreciate this type of beauty because, for the longest, I swore that I was ugly I don’t knohy as little girls, we often connected dark skin with being ugly I don’t understand e do it, but a lot of us go through that stage where we use the words, dark skin, and ugly interchangeably, and that should never be okay to do

Why is it that to us, people with fairer skin are the ones we think are beautiful? I blaet picked on because of my dark skin, but people also bullied me because of rade, and third graders were taller than et, but I was indeed shorter than a lot of people I took ht from my mother because she was short My sister took after our father and got his long legs, so she ultimately was taller in stature, which I used to be soooo jealous about Back then, I would risk it all to have my sister’s tall, slender frame

As I grew older, I learned to accept every imperfection that the Lord had blessed me with My ht, I made up for it with my brain

By the ti puberty, I was still walking around, looking like a little boy with no ‘chest,’ hair on et irls started getting it as young as twelve years old at est

Not only was I bullied about ot to hter of not one, but two pastors I never understood why that was considered to be such a bad thing I mean, people would literally sit up in class and make jokes because hter PK is another nickname that I was called, which was short for Preacher’s kid I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of the things that my peers were able to do

Froh school, I attended public schools Bothabout h they were pastors, their church was located right in the middle of the hood, so they never tried to keep h we didn’t live anywhere near the hood growing up, that didn’t mean we didn

’t get our education from there as well

Both of rew up in the hood, Overtown, to be exact My father’s father was a pastor, so my dad had pretty randfather didn’t have his own church at the tiht in the middle of the projects, and everyone who lived in those particular projects would co dealers, prostitutes, kids, parents, you name it No, I wasn’t there to witness these priceless moments, but I was told this story thousands of times by ive toup

“If your grandfather can preach in thea church, then why are youhe loved to throw in my face

I went through the pits of hell, trying to finish medical school Daily, I wasup because it was getting so hard, butme no room to drop out of randfather preaching in the projects, what he was doing had gotten out to the right people, and they gave him the est, most talked about churches in Miami

My grandfather died when I o years old, and his church was one of the randfather didn’t have a wife My father’sbreast cancer for three years That saet was the church that et there on ti on the floor because it got crowded each Sunday like it was Easter

I grew up having basically everything I wanted My parents weren’t filthy rich, but I can’t reet it for rew up in a four-bedroom, two story home There was a lake in the back, which provided beautiful scenery, and my mother had staff that would come and clean the house twice a month, but that was it We didn’t live soiven to us, we earned it Good grades, doing our chores, and helping out around the church were all things that afforded us the privilege of having so nice