Guilt. I loved my Annie so.
As a child growing up in the DC suburbs, I had no idea about what was going on. I had Annie, who was with my family 6 years before I was born until I was 13 when my father moved us. I came back to her later as she worked part-time for my aunt in Reston, VA. My mother died when I was nine but I always had Annie. I would go to her apartment in NE DC by cab and have to be walked up to her apartment because it was so dangerous. But she would fix me my favorite meal, seashells and clams (and black olives) and fried chicken. I loved her so much and she loved me, she had no children. The race thing never entered my mind; that is I did not care what color she was, she loved me when it seemed a lot of people did not. I don’t remember ever worrying about her race, I just loved her.
–Lisa VonTress
View Lisa’s six word essay @ The Race Card.
Michele Norris is the host of NPR’s All Things Considered and the author of The Grace of Silence.
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