She asked me to sing, listening out for a revealing twang in a croaky rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Lately. I carefully repeated several words, first in my supposedly “fake” British accent and then in my apparently “real” American one.
The group crowded round as my doubter sat me down and put me through a painstaking interrogation. Late one evening, I found myself in the company of west African students and, as we ate jollof rice, one stood up to announce they had found me out: that my accent was fake. My mistaken identity, however, is more than simply a matter of Black and white.
But, with reports of Confederate flags and Donald and Melania posters in bedroom windows, I think twice when crossing the road at night and hurry when I see a police car: a reflex that is as much response to the state violence that killed George Floyd as the realities of growing up Black in London. As for Ithaca, its charming Queen Anne homes bear Black Lives Matter signs on their manicured lawns and, come election night, it is a rare patch of Democrat blue in a sea of red.
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