It is the middle of June 2018 and I'm sitting on the stage of an Episcopal Cathedral with

two friends, the Reverend Broderick Greer and the writer Austin Channing Brown.

We are discussing Austin's new book, I'm still here, Black Dignity and a World Made for

Whiteness, a beautifully written memoir that pulls back the curtain of a Black woman's

experience in white spaces.

She writes things like, it is work to be the only person of color in an organization,

bearing the weight of all your white co-workers' questions about blackness.

It's work to always be hyper-visible because of your skin easily identified as being present

or absent, but then for your needs to be completely invisible to those around you.

I read aloud from her book, Broderick shares his own insight, Austin says something hilarious.

When it comes time for audience members to ask questions, a young malagassy woman, a

woman I know who is filled with effervescent joy every time I see her is first to speak,

but she doesn't.

She can't.

Not a single word gets past her tears.

She apologetically shakes her head instead.

I watch as Austin calmly walks down and embraces her while the woman sobs.

Austin tilts her head gently so to have her own voice picked up by the standing mic.

This hug is for all the Black women here tonight, she says.

I just want to say to you, you're not losing your mind.

All that stuff that is hard about being in white spaces, you're not imagining it.

There's nothing wrong with you.

...