I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

Once, my daughter and I walked into a used

once my daughter and I walked into a used bookstore in Chattanooga.

The owner took interest in her and asked questions about where she lived.

I listened from several hours over. where she grew up in

in Knoxville and a stage of reported she grew up in Knoxville and that her dad

lived in Vermont so you didn't grow up with your father?

The woman asked.

She turned to her adult son,

also working behind the cash register and said,

so what does that tell you?

That's most of them.

It was a hurtful comment.

I walked over to my daughter,

took the books out of her hand,

put my arm around her, and walked out.

Part of my journey is overcoming the judgment and shame of being the child of two parents who never married.

In the 1980s, conservatives demonized LGBTQ plus communities, divorcees, pro-choice women, and black women

and their children.

The divisive rhetoric around traditional family values made a segment of black and brown

households the scapegoat for ill-conceived social welfare policies. The conversations flatten their humanity and stories.

...