embodied the consequences of exile, of exclusion. Suddenly the accused had stepped outside of love, community, and entered the territory in another person’s head that made her the thing hated.
Time and again we see the damage racism imposes on human development, regardless if one is white, brown, or black. For being able to travel on both sides of the color line allows Derricotte to hear things she otherwise might not being instantly recognizable as black. She likens racism to a form of child abuse for its detrimental impact on self-esteem, identity formation, and overall character development. We see her find herself time and again in uncomfortable situations on both sides of the color line, like the time a man sits next to her because he does not want to sit in his assigned seat because there is a black man beside him “If you saw what’s sitting in that seat beside me, you’d know why I can’t go back” (Derricotte 26).
Yet, despite these continual assaults on one’s being because of being perceived as the “other” (i.e., the inferior, what is not white), Derricotte tries to understand race relations from both sides of the color l
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