Not only me, but also every child my mother gave birth to, every child on my street, on my block, in my neighborhood. Of course, I'm talking about a time twenty-five, thirty years in the past, but I don't feel much of a shift in attitude today. You write about black family life. It is easy to say that the family structure is falling apart. There are many single-parent homes.
Parents can control only what goes on in their houses.
You have true warlike conditions in some of these neighborhoods. There are some very real pressures and concerns that did not exist when I was growing up in a housing project. I would describe myself as a black female writer. I surely have been black and female all my life and now, because I am a writer, I do not want to stop describing myself in that way. Racism and sexism are what can pigeonhole you.