Tiffanie Drayton is a 'Black American Refugee ' Why she left the U S to

When Tiffanie Drayton left the U. S. for Trinidad and Tobago in 2013, she became part of a small cultural cohort: Black American emigres who said they felt cornered and powerless in the face of persistent racism, police brutality and economic struggles in the U. S. and chose to settle and pursue their American-born dreams abroad instead. No official statistics cover these international transplants. But they span the globe,and leave the U. S. temporarily or permanently for different reasons: in search of a better quality of life, for work opportunities, to marry or retire, for tax reasons, for adventure. Drayton, 32, left in part because her family kept getting priced out of gentrifying neighborhoods in New Jersey. Then 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed after buying a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea – a tragic moment that for Drayton reinforced the lifelong challenges she faced as a Black American.”In America, your hands are shaking. You’re worried about what to say. You’re worried about whether you have the right ID. You’re just so worried all the time,” Drayton told USA TODAY in June 2020, describing the interactions she and her family and friends regularly experienced with American police officers. This month Drayton publishes “Black American Refugee: Escaping the Narcissism of the American Dream” (Viking, 304 pp., out now), a look at race in America told through the lens of her personal journey. Drayton’s tale is told with verve and honesty. It blends her experiences trying to ascend America’s traditional citadels of success – whether it’s relationships or pocketbooks – with historically contextualized explanations about the many barriers put in front of Black Americans. What follows is a lightly edited version of a Q&A email correspondence with the author. Tiffanie Drayton: I first began to unravel the complexities of systemic racism in college after taking a class called “Racial Stratification in the U. S. Economy” with a professor named Darrick Hamilton. In doing so, I was finally able to enumerate the number of ways racism had negatively impacted my life and come to terms with it. The experience was both relieving and empowering! This book was my opportunity to humanize the conversation about systemic racism, while also giving others the necessary information to understand it. Drayton: Freedom is the opportunity to be in an environment that recognizes, cherishes and protects your humanity and culture. Where people within it think of you as an extension of themselves – like family even. For me, that looks like walking through neighborhoods or driving at night without fearing me or my family will be treated badly just because our skin is a browner hue. It also looks like parading through the streets of Trinidad and Tobago for Carnival while surrounded by people of all colors who are all there to experience one thing: joy. Drayton: Black Americans have one of the most powerful passports in the world.

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