As for now, it must be said that the process of washing the disparate tribes white, the elevation of the belief in being white, was not achieved through wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land; through the flaying of backs; the chaining of limbs; the strangling of dissidents; the destruction of families; the rape of mothers; the sale of children; and various other acts meant, first and foremost, to deny you and me the right to secure and govern our own bodies.

And I saw that what divided me from the world was not anything intrinsic to us but the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named us matters more than anything we could ever actually do. In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after.

I had my mother’s face, but because of the color of my skin, I didn’t look to the world like I belonged to her.

My grandparents don’t call themselves white, and neither does my mother. They call themselves Armenian. But America does not agree. To America, they are white. That was precisely what my great-grandfather hoped for. Whatever they call themselves, whiteness has claimed them. Whiteness cloaks them and keeps them safe.

The lies told about God's Word in order to build a case for racism led my dad and his siblings to reject Christianity, but the values of his parents’ faith – courage, perseverance, love, and order – permeated 6001 and the lives of those in it. My grandfather was soft-spoken and rarely raised his voice, but made his views known. My grandmother was a disciplinarian. She didn't shout but was a straight shooter. My uncles and aunts knew their parents supported their political activities, yet they didn’t think of their mum and dad as revolutionaries in their own right.