Kiara Carter

Token and Boxes Kiara Carter

There's always one. One friend, coworker, classmate, family who increases the diversity by one or two hundred percent. In most cases those same people flow between different worlds where they are "too colored" for the majority and "too white" for everyone else. Token and Boxes is a poetic look at what it is like to be a minority among minorities. This is a deeply personal story about finding identity in an absurd world. Each section builds on the other until we have covered a scape of American life from childhood, the workplace, the church, early adulthood, you name it. Carter describes herself as a traveler and we will see as she travels from assimilating to expectations to empowerment through love of self and community. This story is meant to expose the tension of traveling between worlds. What does it mean to "blank"-American? Which parts of ourselves do we have to choose in order to survive? To thrive? Do we have to play the game at all or can we exist freely? This book opens up conversation to those questions. It aims toward deconstructing racism personally and institutionally. The hope is that others will see themselves in this personal expression and find vocabulary for their experiences and feelings. Token and Boxes is made to expose, suture, and heal.