Thriving as an Outsider | Naeemah Elias

[Applause] I was attacked as an eight-year-old because I talked like a white girl. My family had just moved to a new town and one day after school, a kid grabbed me, spun me around, and scratched my face. She nearly took my left eye.This is my earliest memory of feeling like an outsider. So, code switching and roleplaying became my early survival tools. I copied how the popular kids talked and how they acted cuz my young brain decided that I needed to fit in to survive.I want you to think about a time when ...