Leilani Taneus-Miller

This book is not about me.

Yet I lived through the same time and in the same place.

So some of the things that happen to Shelly have happened to me, And others like me.

I was born in the city but moved to a small town.

We became the first blacks in our neighbourhood.

And then of course, like Shelly, I was the only black kid in my class.

Brushing racism aside was the done thing.

As good “negroes” we knew our places as second-class citizens.

 ‘Work harder, expect less,’ we were told.

‘Just pretend that didn’t happen,’ we were told.

Lucky for you, dear reader, I remember enough of what happened to write Shelly’s story.