Tiffanie Drayton is a mother, world traveler, and journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, NBC News, Vox, Marie Claire, Playboy, Salon, and Complex, and on Yahoo, among other outlets. Her memoirBlack American Refugee: Escaping the Narcissism of the American Dream was published by Penguin Random House and featured on The Daily Show.
When a boat with the bodies of more than a dozen African refugees washed up on the shores of Tobago, a few miles from my home, it reminded me of a brutal racist past—and present.