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My church was black my school was black, and my sports teams were black.

I was aware of my blackness before that phone call, but it was wrapped in the soothing warmth of normalcy. We tried calling a second time, but the same man replied with something like, “I told you that you have the wrong number. Nervously, I asked to speak with Laurie McCaulley, but the man on the other line said I had the wrong number and abruptly hung up.

I dutifully went to the school office, where they dialed the number on the emergency contact card and handed me the phone. I was in bad enough shape to call my mother at her factory job at Chrysler. It happened in elementary school one morning when I started to feel sick. I was eight years old the first time someone called me a nigger.

Here is the full list of CT’s 2021 Book Award winners. An excerpt from CT’s Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year.