I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.
I grew up in the 1970s, but I don't think a whole lot had changed from the '60s. Oh, it had changed in the law books - but not in the kitchens of white homes.
Having a separate bathroom for the black domestic was just the way things were done. It had faded out in new homes by the time the '70s and '80s rolled up.
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