Mexico’s Hidden Blacks

From Alexis Okeowo, in The Economist

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

The first time I felt deeply uncomfortable being black was when I was a kid. My family had just moved to Alabama, and I was in a car with my father and my brother. A white woman with a harshly lined face and brown frizzy hair yelled out a racial slur as we drove by. Dad immediately put the car in reverse and drove over to her as she pumped gas at a filling station. “What did you say?” he demanded. She glared at him and refused to respond. Shocked into silence, my brother and I didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive home.

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