I was raised by my mom in Flint, Michigan. Our neighborhood was blue-collar, and pretty much all black. We lived right across the street from a General Motors plant.
I’m mixed (my mom is white and my dad is black), and as far as my identity growing up, it was really in the eye of the beholder. When I was a kid, some of the black kids in my neighborhood would say, “You’re not black.” But then when I got to Bentley High, all of a sudden I’m like one of the only black kids at an all-white school.