“Growing up in New York means learning to speak the language of subways. Sit on this cart, by this door, to be closest to the station exit. Language is muscle memory. I was never taught to speak the language of bike chains and helmets. Yet somehow, in the eyes of the other, I am lacking. Everyone’s supposed to be able to ride a bike. It is always the ever-general “everyone” that gets me, the “everyone” who lies on the outside of its periphery because “everyone,” to this day, does not always account for the outliers.”

“Among these experiences, I realized that the expectations set for us oldest Black daughters were rarely verbalized. It was our job to fill the gaps wherever they would appear, despite not being mature enough to understand the depth of the holes. Whether spoken or not, being the oldest meant shelling out an amount of maturity that my teenage self couldn’t afford. We had to be strong before we could be vulnerable.”

“Black hair is waking up in the morning and saying the words Black hair and meaning it, meaning it.”