Tabitha Brown

Oh, okay.

If my mama came to school and talked to teachers and, you know, all my teachers were white.

In my town, it was only black and white.

There was no in between.

I didn't see like Hispanics or any of that stuff until I grew up and became an adult.

She would change her voice.

So I learned very early, oh, this is how we have to talk to people who are not black.

I didn't know that that was code switching back then, but it was like, oh, to be treated a certain way, to be respected, to be seen.

That's what we have to do.

And then growing up and working in corporate America, being told like in a call center, people hear my voice say, oh, are you black?

I don't want to speak to somebody black.

No way.

Oh, absolutely.

Come on.

Oh, absolutely, honey.

And so I would learn to mask it even more, to push it down even more and then get into entertainment hearing, oh, you sound country.

You're going to have to learn to cover that.

So it became like I'm doing it for, you know, just my normal school and work.

I'm doing it for corporate America.

Now I'm doing it for entertainment.