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I went to a segregated school; I was born a Negro, not a black man.

I was one of the only people of color at my grade school and also my high school. It's weird recollecting on my childhood, I think, because my brothers are all white. We all share the same father but different mothers. I guess I kind of associated white, but I was occasionally reminded in a really negative way that I wasn't.

I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

I never felt that I was supposed to be white. Or black, either. My parents just wanted to let me be who I needed to be.

It was jarring to be berated for 'acting white' when I was placed in a predominantly black middle school in Southern California. I was also chubby, into boys who weren't into me, and tried too hard to fit into this 'blackness' I was supposed to be.

I was black growing up in an all-white neighborhood, so I felt like I just didn't fit in. Like I wasn't as good as everybody else, or as smart, or whatever.

I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person.

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.