These days, I care a lot more about the brands I support and what/who they support. I’m twenty-seven and I’ve never had Chick-fil-a. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but I realized that there was power in my dollar and I intend to use it however I can.

I’m 10. All I can remember is how everyone shifted in their seat and gawked at me, my skin darker than their alabaster “purity,” which I so envied at the time. We were talking about the Civil War. I was the only mixed girl in my class, the only Other, the only person left looking in from elsewhere. I don’t remember much of the actual lesson my fifth-grade teacher discussed in class —

only that my classmates never stopped staring at me.